ESA Appeal - is it worth it?

Hi everyone, having waited some 5 months, I've been given a date for a tribunal hearing for later this week.
Due to having been paid for 365 days, my ESA payments have now stopped and I have little, if any realistic prospect of being placed in the Support Group, is it worth my wasting everyone's time by attending the tribunal?
any advice would be very much appreciated.

Pete

Hi Pete,

Only you can decide whether you think it is worth continuing with your appeal. Are you appealing against a 'Fit for work' decision? If so, there are a couple of things you should take into account.

As long as you do not close your claim, You will be awarded NI credits if you are put into the WRAG even if payment has stopped. These credits count towards your state retirement pension and I believe that the requirement for a full pension will soon be 35 years of payments.

Again, as long as you do not close your claim, you keep the potential to be put into the Support Group at a future reassessment if your condition worsens (or you develop something else). Otherwise, the only way you could be paid ESA in future, even if the Support Group, would be to requalify for contributary benefit through employment.

I appreciate that none of us have a crystal ball but you need to weight up the balance of probabilities for your individual circumstances.