DLA appeal

We are in the process of appealing against the DLA decision to reduce my husbands care allowance to lowest level and not allow any mobility, which you have given us advice on. He had to have a medical sometime ago for ESA which he was put in the support group with no problem and it has just been renewed by filling in the forms they sent. Can we get access to this medical and would it be helpful to present as evidence.
My husband's neuro surgeon will write a letter in support but only if the DLA will write requesting it direct. Will they do this.

The DWP won't necessarily write to your husband's surgeon. NHS doctors' contracts don't include reports for patients that aren't paid for, and although an NHS doctor is obliged to provide a report for the DWP in certain circumstances, they are not obliged to provide a report for a patient, even if the patient pays for it.

One way round this is for your husband to request a copy of his hospital notes, or to ask his GP for a copy of the letters the surgeon has sent to him. However, in either case, a fee may be payable. You can find the scale of fees on the Department of Health website.

You can request a copy of the Atos ESA medical report. The DWP should supply it and it should not cost anything. You can use it as evidence, although do bear in mind that any evidence has to relate to the time of the DLA application, so the evidential validity will depend on when it was and the changeability of your husband's condition.

We had the same problem in that my husbands consultant would only write a letter if DWP wrote to him. He did say that he could do a general "to whom it may concern" letter but if the DWP wrote to him he could be more specific. Obviously, we weren't very happy at this nor could we understand the logic.

However, his care nurses wrote a letter for him and we also obtained a letter from his Dr for which we paid a fee. So perhaps if you can do this it may help.

Re DLA for care and mobility I wrote a diary of our typical day showing the care needs he required for both aspects.