Hello, New & need advice. ESA (Sorry long)

Stay strong Claire, you have come to a good site.

Hi Guys,


Thank you for all your replies, it has helped a lot (my stress levels alone!)

The advisor came this afternoon and she went through a lot of stuff. She has requested both of my mm's medical reports and the DM's comments or statement of reasons. But we identified a descriptor that could get her back into the support group and to be honest i don't even remember it even being discussed at the medical. But once we get the reports we can take it from there.

I also phoned the JCP and requested that the pathways interview take place in a private room and they agreed ! Their attitude was actually quite pleasant, which is a far cry from this time last year.

But i am still a little worried at what they might try to get her to agree to tomorrow and if they are going to view her as being uncooperative as there is no action or training that is going to improve her chances of employment, also she has not been given the work-focused health-related assessment so non of this has been discussed before-hand in a appropriate setting.

Claire

Hi Claire

The WFHRA no longer takes place (officially it has been suspended for two years) as the DWP have realised that it was a complete waste of time, and of no benefit to anyone.

People's experiences of Pathways to Work interviews vary. You may get a very sympathetic advisor who feels that you mum shouldn't even be there, or you may get someone who tries convince her that she can climb Mount Everest!

Either way, in all probabilities, I think it is unlikely that she will be asked to carry out any activity at the first interview. It's more for the purpose of explaining what will happen over the course of her claim and giving you lots of pieces of paper. Cooperation at this stage should only require that she listens to and discusses whatever they want to talk about.

As she is likely to be appealing to get into the support group, they may defer the interviews to a later date. If not, you can always ask them to do this to give her more time.

Assuming this is her first interview and it is conducted with JCP, it's possible that the remainder of the interviews will be with a private sector company; they tend to be much more reasonable with claimants than JCP.

Best of luck tomorrow.

Derek