Failed WCA assessment, decision maker suggested I appeal

Hi Kev,
You could submit a subject access request to the DWP specifically requesting answers to the items you've mentioned and anything else you want to know from your case file. e.g. did they take cognisance of your work occupational health reports and your hospital consultant health reports.

Hi Jane,

I think I have requested that in my journal. They said they will post the assessors report and the decision maker will give me an explanation of the decision. At this stage I still haven't seen the assessors report or a decision explanation. The decision maker called me prior to making the decision and told me that the assessor had reported that I don't meet the required threshold for limited capability for work but that she could see I had supplied considerable evidence and that although she had to defer to the assessor felt that I should put in for a mandatory reconsideration.

Hi Kev,

I hope you receive your report and reasoning soon.

It maybe useful to you to request your audio recording of your assessment if you have not already done so.

With that amount of lung damage, and function decreasing, is the risk of you going into a workplace because of infection ? Make sure you state the actual risk very clearly so it doesn't get lost in translation. "detrimental to health" is vague, "catching a cold is likely to put me in intensive care" is a lot more difficult to ignore/minimize.

Does anybody know if doctor's support letters have an expiration date from an evidential point of view? My last tribunal in 2013 I won largely because the consultant who treated me for my cancer wrote that in his view it would be detrimental to my health if I was not found to have a limited capability for work. My GP also wrote the same in his 2013 letter, both directly quoting regulation 29 from ESA at that time. My tribunal was successful largely due to those letters.

My consultant wrote me another letter in 2017 reiterating the same and also said that due to my extensive lung damage I could not be expected to carry out the activities expected of someone my age. An Occ health report at the same time also said I was struggling to maintain my hours and in their opinion it was damaging my health to be working as many hours as I was. I was awarded enhanced rate for PIP on the basis of these reports, the assessor citing them repeatedly for the point descriptors.

Since then I have two more Occ health reports, the most recent from March this year and a letter from my new consultant to my GP outlining my current conditions.

The decision maker said they couldn't consider the previous tribunal win or the letters because they don't relate to my current claim, but my health conditions are permenant and irreversible and I've had them since 1999.

My current consultant and GP I do not know very well. I changed GP surgeries and my original doctor has retired as has my consultant who wrote the previous letters.

I have asked at the heart and lung department today but the woman behind the desk said consultants don't write letters so I don't know what to do about getting my evidence updated?

I have emailed my surgery but as yet have not had a reply.