FIRST ESA ASSESSMENT

Gordon et al

A further update on the above which I’ll try and make as short as possible:
Despite my trying to convince her to the contrary my good lady wanted to ‘get it over with’ so yesterday I took a day’s leave to drive her on the fifty mile round trip for her assessment.
In addition to her disabilities she gets seriously stressed if she has to go somewhere new or different, meet new people etc and as I always do in these situations, I will do some research beforehand in order to try and reassure her and overcome any potential difficulties or obstacles.
So, I rang the assessment centre and was told the centre was on the ground floor but didn’t have disabled or any other parking. There was also no drop off area and that car parking was only available in the multi-storey car park over the bridge on the opposite side of the river. I was also told that the entrance door to the centre was heavy, it opened outwards and that it wasn’t automatic.
I checked on Google Earth and Maps and found that whilst the centre was on the ground floor, this ground floor was more than a storey height below pavement level. There were two extremely long ‘disabled’ ramps to negotiate down to this level plus the centre was at the end of the building: the furthest point away from the bottom of the ramps.
Whilst on Google maps I notice a Shopmobility sign pointing towards said car park. I managed to contact them and to arrange the use of a wheelchair such that I could now wheel my wife to the assessment centre.
However, I still had to get her the 25 miles from our home to the car park and we knew this would be extremely difficult but for some reason she still wanted to go and ‘get it over with’.
A journey that ordinarily would take me alone less than 30 minutes took well over an hour, with two stops en route to allow my wife to lie down to try and relieve the pain she was in.
On arrival at the car park and whilst I enrolled her at the Shopmobility office, she again laid down on the back seat of the car to try and relieve the pain.
Having helped her out of the car, I then had to wheel her from the second floor of the car park, down a series of disabled ramps, across two roads, over a bridge, across another main road and then down the afore mentioned ramps etc to the centre. All this was in the open and fortunately the weather was dry; had it been raining we would have been soaked through.
This was a distance of some 400 metres; a quarter of a mile and 8 times the distance she can try to mobilise and which her ESA85A said she could.
So, one hour and fifty minutes after leaving home, we arrive at the door of the assessment centre and press the bell for assistance, me having failed miserably to try and open the door and manoeuvre a wheelchair at the same time.
A lady, who turned out to be the receptionist, held the door open for us to enter the lobby and did the same with the internal door to the waiting room.
The waiting room was deathly silent and completely devoid of people!
Late morning with the backlogs Atos apparently have and there were no people there for assessments?
The receptionist appeared pleasant and was sympathetic as my wife struggled to sign (poor grip due to arthritis) a couple of forms she was given whilst sat uncomfortably in the wheelchair.
She then wanted to stand and to use the bathroom so I helped her up and we ‘walked/limped’ the 3 or 4 metres to the disabled bathroom.
I got the wheelchair for her again and when we came out of the bathroom a young lady, possibly 26 or 27 years of age was waiting for us. She asked us to follow her and took us to a small side room which contained a desk, a couple of chairs and a really old examination bed and in which it was difficult to manoeuvre the wheelchair.
She followed us in and it was only when she started talking did we realise this young woman was going to do the assessment.
But she DID NOT DO THE ASSESSMENT!!!
Apparently because she COULD NOT DO THE ASSESSMENT!!!
She had a copy of my wife’s ESA50 in front of her. She had apparently just received it and when she had read it (fair play for doing that) she had found something which she was not qualified to assess.
This apparently had to be done by a doctor and not by a physiotherapist which was what she was.
She had checked with ‘her masters’ and they had confirmed that she could not do the assessment and since there was no doctor available, another assessment, possibly a home visit, would have to be arranged.
We could not believe what we were hearing!
We had come all this way and my wife had gone though all this pain and stress to get here and now she wasn’t going to be assessed.
She just burst into tears!!!
The young woman (I got her name but I had to ask) was most apologetic etc and was honest and forthcoming in dealing with my not too pleasant questions and demeanour, as my wife was inconsolable by now.
But there was nothing we could do, we just had to go home!!!
So now we await another appointment?
A home visit and from a doctor? I doubt it somehow!
A disgusting letter will soon be on its way to Atos and I will keep you updated.

N&W

I am so sorry to hear that your wife has had to go through this Would you consider contacting your MP and letting him/her know how badly the system is treating people?

Contacting your MP

A further update:
My wife has received another letter dated the day of the above debacle, so it must have been produced that afternoon.
So what did it contain?
An apology? A home visit from a qualified Doctor?
No chance!
They only sent another appointment asking her to go back to the original venue with the 4th floor assessment room and the 82 steps that they deemed unsuitable and that they cancelled last month!!
My wife has now had a letter from her GP supporting a home visit so we wait and see if her request is successful.

Mrs Hurtyback

I wasn’t sure about contacting our MP but after the latest piece of incompetence and insensitivity; I have.

N&W