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Having difficulty getting support or representation for my ESA appeal, advice required.
tina_123
Member Posts: 27 Connected
Hi, I was found 'fit for work' in May and my ESA was stopped, I need to get some advice and clout behind me for my appeal, but am experiencing difficulties acquiring this.
Replies
Okay, so does this mean you have done a mandatory reconsideration (MR); had it refused and have now appealed or by appeal do you really mean MR?
MRs have a low (17% but possibly rising) success rate but you can largely do an MR yourself as you don't need new medical or other evidence. Ideally for an appeal you need representation and you can look in your local area for Citizens Advice, a law centre, any other independent advice centre, perhaps the national charity which supports your specific health issue(s), or a local authority welfare rights advice service. Almost all of the above will provide their services free of charge. It's only exceptionally someone would need to use a service which charges. Be aware that some services which charge will tell you there are no free services in your area when that may be untrue. Certainly happens in Greater Manchester for example.
You can try something like https://advicelocal.uk but I'd be the first to admit it's very hit and miss. It's worth securing representation because, if you attend an oral hearing (and assuming you have a winnable case in the first place) your chances of success are much higher with a representative.
In terms of medical evidence for ESA the usefulness and necessity really depends on your specific health issues. You'll already have a fit note from your GP so your diagnosis should not be in dispute. Your GP may be able to add great value re: mental health but less so re: physical health. What do they know of how your conditions impact you outside of their consulting room or overnight for example? Their repeating what you tell them adds credibility but doesn't carry the weight of medical evidence because it arguably isn't.
Where evidence from a GP can be good is in terms of understanding the impact of being found fit itself on your health and whether you might fit the grounds to be treated as having exceptional circumstances despite not scoring 15 points. Direct them to that rather than fitness for work itself. Their fit note has already expressed their view on that.
What might be better is if you look at the ESA points scoring system and identify which points you think you ought to score by asking yourself whether you do each activity safely and repeatedly in a work context. Then think of a couple of examples of what happened the last times you tried that specific activity or something similar (some of the activities are not things we would necessarily ever do). That's going to be at least as helpful to your case as focusing on medical evidence. There's no legal requirement for medical evidence for any benefit claim beyond fit notes and this is often forgotten. However, you do need to have other evidence in place. Anecdotal evidence done in detail is excellent.
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