I’m currently spending my days writing a guide to incapacity for work on physical health grounds (I really don’t like to think what I must have got up to in a previous incarnation). I've probably been working on my own too long and as a result I’m slightly bemused by two of the tick boxes on the IB50 questionnaire. The boxes, on page 10, should be ticked if:

‘I cannot pick up a two pence coin with either one of my hands’
and
‘I cannot pick up a 2 pence coin with one hand but I can with the other.’

The descriptors they relate to are (presumably):

7c ‘Cannot pick up a coin which is 2.5cm or less in diameter with either hand’ (15 points)
or
7g ‘Cannot pick up a coin which is 2.5cm or less in diameter with one hand but can with the other.’ (6 points)

Imagine a claimant who has moderate arthritis in one or both hands. They can, just, manage to pick up a two pence coin –which is 2.5cm in diameter - but are utterly unable to manage the fine motor skills required to pick up a one pence or five pence coin - both of which are less than 2.5cm in diameter - with the affected hand(s).

Being an ordinary, honest claimant, they select the tick box ‘I have no problem using my hands’. At their PCA, because the claimant has ticked ‘No problem’ the Medical Services doctor ticks the box stating that they agree with the customer’s choice of descriptor and elects not to explore manual dexterity any further. The decision maker looks at the evidence and awards the claimant 0 points for manual dexterity and as a result they are found capable of work.

Shouldn’t the tick box on the IB50 read: ‘I cannot pick up a five pence coin with . . .’ and hasn’t the claimant been duped by being asked the wrong question? Wouldn't the 2 pence coin test only apply if the law stated ‘Cannot pick up a coin which is 2.5cm or more in diameter . . .

I’m sure I’m missing something, somebody please put me out of my misery and tell me what.

It's an interesting point, but surely the thickness of a coin is also significant? A pound coin is 2.2cm but is easier to pick up than 2p coin (or a 50p coin) because it is so much thicker(and has milled edges). Some people will find a 50p easier to pick up because it has edges you can get a fingernail under. Indeed someone with longer fingernails will find it easier to pick up coins and I'm sure many people with limited use of their finger joints use their fingernails to compensate.

A claimant may be able to pick up a pound coin and so not score points if they answer the question according to legislation thinking of a pound coin, but may not be able pick up a 2p coin.

It illustrates the hit or miss apprach inherent in using a system like the PCA. Perhaps one way to test people's ability against this descriptor it is assess which UK coins (most of which are 2.5cm or less) people can pick up. If they can't pick them all up, they ought to score and the form ought to therefore ask such a quuestion.

(I think you must have had a distant relation to the Borgias or something Steve you're certainly paying for it now. Maybe a cousin if you carry on with this and go no further, or perhaps a brother if you move on to cover the mental health ones too)

I think manual dexterity is the hardest set of descriptors in the book - those poor old ambidextrous people and everything else. And you're totally right - I'd never looked at the coin descriptor properly before. Will certainly ask the questions harder from now on.

But surely the single worst thing about the IB50 form is that it's bottom up and not top down unlike how tribunals should apply the descriptors in CIB 5361/97? (Well, maybe bottom then top then down to second from bottom, but you know what I mean)

Neil, you're right about one pound coins - now that I'm entirely self-employed I'm so broke I'd forgotten they even existed.

And . . . damn, now I've started to post it's no longer possible to read your name, only your post, so my apologies Poster X. But the sad truth is that I already wrote a (free) 50 odd page guide to the mental health descriptors. So I guess you can call me Lucretia.

Does anyone take the view that I'm just indulging in purposeless pedantry in querying the IB50 on this point? I'd be happy to hear an opposing view. I wouldn't want to end up risking the apopleptic wrath of Commissioner Jacobs in a year or two by pursuing this if, in reality, most people think it's not an arguable point but they're just too polite to say so