You can change your in person appointment to telephone

Overwhelmed1

Hi I’ve seen some posts about concerns at having to attend an in person assessment for ESA so wanted to share my experience as I found that you can change this to a telephone appointment if you need to.

My initial appointment was for a telephone assessment and they cancelled this on the day. I was offered the opportunity to take a call at any time which I declined.

My letter arrived a week later informing me that an in person appointment had now been arranged for me. It didn’t explain why. I’m disabled and suffering with significant mobility difficulties and pain at the moment so I was really worried about this as I know I couldn’t get to the appointment and then sit there for 20 minutes to an hour or more as they’d indicated.

I phoned them and to be honest, I expected a battle from what I’d heard of others experiences, but after I explained that I couldn’t travel to the appointment they changed it back to a telephone appointment straight away.

I might just have been lucky with who answered the phone but I do hope if anyone else has problems with their appointment this helps to know you can get it changed.

Charlie_Scope

Thank you for sharing your experience with us @Overwhelmed1. I'm really pleased they were able to change it back to a telephone appointment for you. Do you have much longer to wait until your assessment?

Overwhelmed1

thanks Charlie, it’s in a couple of weeks. Given they said it would be several weeks before I got an appointment if I wouldn’t accept a random time then it’s not too bad. The new telescope assessment is only two days after the in person was scheduled. I will be glad to get it done, it’s all very unpleasant. It feels like they are testing you all the time and you have to prove yourself, maybe that’s just my imagination!