ESA assessment on Friday. Help!

Kitty

If you have not had the face to face assessment yet then there is a chance to correct the problem with your ESA50, you can write to both ATOS and the DWP office dealing with your claim to update the information and explain why you ticked the box.

I have to warn you the DWP Decision Makers tend to favour the information on the ESA50 over anything that is sent in afterwards but you have nothing to lose by trying.

It is very difficult for us to predict how successful any particular claimant will be, certainly having no up to date medical evidence will not assist your claim but it may still be possible to provide some relevant evidence.

I am afraid that it is becoming frequent for GP's to refuse to help claimants with their benefit claims, however, you are entitled to get access to your medical records and it may be that there are useful documents in this that you can still use. Even an old report can still be useful if you can also show that there is unlikely to have been any improvement in your condition in the intervening years.

Requesting your medical records

Charging for medical records

There is a similar process for accessing your hospital records.

If you any further questions, please reply to this post and we will do our best to help.

Gordon

Kitty

An aid is something that helps the claimant perform a function e.g. walking and a walking stick, ATOS and the DWP are entitled to consider the use of an aid which the claimant uses or it is reasonable to assume that someone with similar problems would use.

The important thing is to have explained any such usage on your ESA50 and even more importantly, when the usage is not reasonable, a good example of this is the Mobility test (question 1 on the ESA50), where the usage of a manual wheelchair is assumed. so it is not enough to show that you cannot walk 50m but you must also show that you cannot self-propelled a wheelchair over this distance as well.

They ask you to bring any aids with you that they can assess whether the aid is appropriate for the usage, I would not normally expect a heat pad to come under this heading but if they alleviate your symptoms and allow you to walk further then they are something they might consider.

Gordon

L

Thank you for your post and congratulations on the SG award.

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Gordon