Change in circumstances for esa

rioruss wrote:

Hi, i had put in a change of circumstance form in for my DLA (followed the advise from here) . Fingers crossed as only getting low rate care , awarded at tribunal, at begining of the this month.
I thought i best inform ESA also, as i am in the wrag group , contribution based.
I was told by the young man at ESA that there was no need as the support group is for people who are dying so no point ( my fibromyalgia has worsened alot since my medical in july)

He's talking rubbish, whilst terminally ill claimants should be put in the Support Group, any claimant with a sever disablility should be eligible.

There is list of criteria, one or more of which you have to meet, see the Understanding ESA Guide (page 25) in the Members area.

i then said about my esa only lasting for 12 months and was told "no, thats not true it will continue you will just have another medical about the 12 month mark

There are two aspects to this, everybdody on ESA has a re-assessment date, a lot are at quite short intervals, others are longer.

Secondly, as I think you know, the government are trying to limit the period you can receive ESA(CB) to one year fro members of the WRAG,

DWP front end staff tend to fall into one of three categories; very helpful, not helpful at all, and clueless. I'll let you decide where the guy you talked to fits.

Gordon

rioruss wrote:

I do need to notify change of circumstance though dont i ? whether it changes me to support group or not !!

There are certainly cases where you do not need to, but as a rule of thumb, if in doubt, tell them.

Gordon

Fedup wrote:

Gordon, what is the reassesment date? Atos failed me, as you know. They said I would be ready for work in three months, which would therefore have been October 2010.

Am I missing something?

No you are not missing anything, most of the time they just take the Return To Work date from the ATOS medical report. Sometimes the Decision Maker actually uses their dicretion and overrides this.

I suspect that three months is just the default value in the Lima software, the number of times it comes up in posts.

Gordon