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Do they realise what this does to people?
axwy62
Member Posts: 140 Pioneering
I've (luckily) been left alone since 2014 but this morning received an ESA50 form for reassessment. It's taken nearly a week to get to me and in the 3 and a bit weeks remaining for me to get it back to them I have a family reunion weekend, my eldest son's wedding and a two week holiday booked - we get back 2 days after the return date.
My immediate response was unprintable and since then I've just felt sick all day and can still barely type for shaking. The first assessment was a complete nightmare, took 6 weeks short of 2 years to complete, involved 12 cancelled appointments and landed me in hospital twice. I simply cannot go through that again and don't want to even fill in their stupid form. I'm probably only being reassessed at all because the stupid doctor who assessed me expected me to make a miraculous recovery from an incurable and irreversible conditon and a genetic condition which will only deteriorate.
I know myself well enough to know this is going to keep me awake at night and lead to obsessive investigation of every possible outcome until it's over. If I could get hold of anyone even remotely involved in this inhumane system right now ....
My immediate response was unprintable and since then I've just felt sick all day and can still barely type for shaking. The first assessment was a complete nightmare, took 6 weeks short of 2 years to complete, involved 12 cancelled appointments and landed me in hospital twice. I simply cannot go through that again and don't want to even fill in their stupid form. I'm probably only being reassessed at all because the stupid doctor who assessed me expected me to make a miraculous recovery from an incurable and irreversible conditon and a genetic condition which will only deteriorate.
I know myself well enough to know this is going to keep me awake at night and lead to obsessive investigation of every possible outcome until it's over. If I could get hold of anyone even remotely involved in this inhumane system right now ....
Replies
I don’t know what to say but I sincerely hope you feel better soon
Yes I agree it’s quite an ordeal for anyone to go through
If you don’t think you can get your response back to them in time you could try and ask for an extension.I have a friend who got a two week extension as she was waiting for results to get back from hospital.
You could telephone them and ask if they would allow you extra time explaining you are unable to complete on time they may allow you a grace period.Good luck.
Debsidoo.x
I can give you this advice. When you have been for the medical. Go online to DWP, and request under freedom of information act. All your information from a specific date, and including the medical assessment report. I am pleased I did get mine. As this enables me, to point out a few things in the jobcentre tomorrow.
It will not be a good day, but have to get on with it. I know this government does not understand what these do to a persons mental health. For myself it is DWP sanctions as well, and not being able to get through the interview at the jobcentre.
What is bothering me is that both of the assessments I've had before have been an absolute nightmare to arrange - 12 cancelled appointments in just under 2 years for the first, a home visit because none of their centres around here are wheelchair accessible, and after all that they took 10 minutes to decide I should be in the support group and left. The assessment was recorded, I have a copy of the report and the recording, and even in 10 minutes there are muliple discrepancies between what was said and what was recorded - none of them in my favour despite the outcome.
The second one only involved 2 cancelled appointments - the first over 2 hours away in a non-accessible building with no parking, the second a home visit for which they just didn't turn up. I was so stressed by the no show, having had several sleepless nights worrying about it and having been hanging around doing nothing for the 4 hour time slot they gave me, that I ended up in hospital the next day with a serious flare up. I also have a copy of that report and again, it's total trash, according to that I can walk between 10 and 50 metres whereas in fact I can walk a few steps at best, and there's no mention of a wheelchair at all - perhaps the nurse didn't notice it. Again, the 'errors' didn't affect the outcome, but I do object to people writing lies about me.
I am luckier than most in that I'm not going to starve if they stop my benefit (at least not until Hubby has to retire next year) so I can imagine how much worse it must be for people who rely on that money as their only income, I think it really would finish me off.
Ive also had my fair share of this **** from the DWP and am in the process of waiting my ESA reassessment, paperwork all sent back in June and awaiting either Paper Based or assessment at a centre. The mind boggles I've decided I will neve go to any assessment ever agian thus they will stop my money, I've now got to the point also I just can't and will not dance or have my life controlled by them the DWP any longer. Enough is enough.
They Know full well the DWP that I am buggered. So I have made my decision if it all goes wrong I will live on the street at least I will be free of them.
Yes for me it's been hard for me to take this direction to go homeless I really cannot do this anymore, I have a safe place to camp and hopefully live off the land and get some food, but I will finally be rid of the DWP to me it will be priceless.
I have over the last few months been preparing my supplies to keep me going for a few years to live DWP free.
How dare some A hole that can judge how I don't cope within a 10 minute interview and dictate my destiny, where my medical record speaks for itself, personally I'm just awaiting my fate one way or another.
I just like many of us just can't cope with this year in year out any further.
When I know my fate I will be posting the result of my future whether I will have a home or be homeless.
God bless one and all....
I created one of the campaign election videos for Labour, and Jeremy Corbyn,
This is a new version of Emeli Sande, Hope "You Are Not Alone
You can see the video here.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=P5o8hRHh9IY
There's no extensions for returning the ESA50 form and it has to be returned by the date stated in the letter otherwise your benefits will stop. The only exception to this rule is if you're claiming ESA for mental health, otherwise it has to be returned. The ESA50 form is sent directly from the health assessment providers and not DWP.
Debsidoo.x
I wasn't planning to take my laptop on holiday with me, but I will have to if I'm still filling in the form, and it's all such a waste of time anyway because the default positon for Maximus, ATOS, Capita and DWP seems to be that everyone is exagerating at best. I could probably write it in Hobbit and they wouldn't notice because I'm sure no one actually reads what's written, at least not until 5 minutes before the assessment. I wish I had the nerve to try it!
I know Maximus are the worst for refusing to do home visits without making you jump through more hoops, including paying for yet another GP letter, after which they say that if you can go to your GP to get a letter, you can go to an assessment centre.
I'm hoping for a decision letter from DWP but expecting an appointment to attend yet another inaccessible assessment centre, probably 40 miles away and with no parking.
Also, you can cancel as many appointments as you need to so long as you have good reason - whilst Maximus will make a fuss, DWP know better than to try to enforce something which has no legal validity whatsoever particularly when ATOS/Maximus cancel appointments willy nilly with no regard to how long you've been kept waiting to be seen.
The optimistic me thinks the paperwork will be returned to DWP with a recommendation that I continue in the Support group and no further assessment will be required.
The pessimistic me thinks that it will once again take 2 years and multiple cancelled appointments before someone finally actually turns up to assess me but doesn't notice the wheelchair or the pages of medical evidence or decides I'm making it all up and that we've paid for all these aids because I'm lazy and so decides I'm fit for work, after which I'll have months and months of waiting for the outcome of mandatory reconsiderations and tribunals before eventually getting the right decision.
I can't quite bring myself to contact them and ask how long it might be before I hear something.
I am not putting up with this again, it's an entirely pointless exercise anyway and why should I be penalised for being too disabled to be admitted to their assessment centres? As well as the cost of the letter from my GP, the stress from having a sword that could cut off my income hanging over my neck for months on end is intolerable. The last ESA assessment took near enough 2 years to complete and put my mental health recovery back 5 years, the PIP assessment put me in hospital.
I'm already collecting the evidence I need for an Equality Act claim, and I will be reporting any identifiable HCPs to the relevant governing bodies. Enough.
Maximus wrote 'your specialist has recommended that you be more mobile'. As justification for making me go to an assessment centre which won't let wheelchair users in, I find that somewhat lacking. I am also trying not to be seriously offended - is it me, or are they actually suggesting that if I tried harder I could manage without the wheelchair? I can't work out what else they could possibly mean.
When you say " an assessment centre which won't let wheelchair users in" do you mean that it is now wheelchair accessible?
Senior online community officer
Senior online community officer
You couldn't make it up. From the first assessment, when I wasn't quite so clued up.
They send me an appointment. I turn up. They won't let me in because I'm in a wheelchair. I go home. I get another appointment for a home visit, which is on the same date as planned surgery and which they knew about. I phone to amend said appointment. I'm told I can't do that because I've already 'failed to attend' the appointment at the assessment centre so if I 'fail to attend' this one, they'll send my file back to DWP. They send my file back to DWP as at the time of the appointment I'm unconscious and so, remarkably, don't answer the door.
DWP have more sense that to try to maintain the 'failed to attend' once provided with the recording of the call plus proof that ATOS knew I would be in hospital before arranging the appointment. I (eventually) get a new appointment for a home visit. About an hour before the HCP is due the post arrives including a letter allegedly from the HCP which basically says 'I called and no one was home'. ATOS try the 'failed to attend' route again. DWP back down when I provide the timed and dated recording of my call which amounts to '**** is going on, she's not supposed to be here for another hour and how could she have known yesterday whether or not I'd be in today?'
I get another appointment. ATOS cancel that one with 2 hours notice. I get another appointment. Half way through the 4 hour time slot I'm expected to hang around for I get a phone call saying the HCP has called in to say there's no one home again. She apparently alleges that she was knocking on the door for half an hour. I ask for a description of the door. After some discussion and a live video of our front door, she accepts that the HCP was clearly at the wrong address but she's left the area by then and won't be back.
I get another appointment ATOS cancel with hours/days/minutes (delete as appropriate and repeat until the total gets to number 12).
I get another appointment. ATOS know this is their last chance so 3 of them turn up - the HCP (an alleged GP, but her 'English' is barely intelligible), the area manager and a minion to operate the recording machine. Once the formalities are done the HCP asks me 3 questions which I answer with information which was on the original form and confirmed by medical evidence (which she admits she hasn't read) and they leave as it's obvious I'm in the support group. Despite the recording, when we receive a copy of the report what is written down bears very little resemblence to what was actually said including the fact that I will allegedly fully recover within 2 years. From once condition which cannot improve and has been stable for 30 years and another degenerative genetic condition.
Having read that, you can see why I might not be willing to risk putting up with it again.
I meet at least 2 other support group descriptors as well as mobilsing.
My form took a week to come, my Son called the place that deals with it and asked for an extension. You could give them a call and explain and see what they say?
I won't risk returning it late without prior consent to an extension, so may have to just get on with it.
it is is an awful worrying which does have an impact in health
i wish you all the v best
In any case, how on earth do you put a date on gradual deterioration? It's not a case of waking up one day and no longer being able to do up buttons, it's more a case of realising that you've been deliberately avoiding anything with smaller buttons for a while and are having to ask for help even with big buttons more and more often.
I have a copy of the ESA113 which my GP sent in, can I put a copy of that with the PIP forms? I also have a nice PDF with all the evidence I sent in in September for ESA so that will be really easy to include.
@poppy123456 might be able to advise you.
I really hope you manage to get it all sorted out, it's not a great time of year to be doing it (then again when is a great time to be filling out forms).
Part of my complaint features in the ICE's annual report for last year, I'm Mrs V!
There happens to be a very powerful clause in the Equality Act, the 'provision, criterion or practice' clause (s19 (1) if you want to read it yourself) which basically says that any blanket policy, such as requiring a GP letter to agree a home visit, which puts someone with a protected characteristic at a disadvantage, in this case being disabled means you're more likely to have difficulty going to a centre and therefore more likely to have to pay for a letter, amounts to indirect discrimination and the Courts can make a declaration that the policy is discriminatory. There's a small bonus in that it would be up to Maximus to prove that either it's not discriminatory or it's a 'proportionate means of achieving a legitimate aim', but since the Work and Pensions Committee report on ESA and PIP assessments basically says asking for a GP letter should be the last resort only if there's no other evidence that a home visit would be appropriate, they're screwed.
For me, any damages awarded would simply be the icing on the cake if I could get that declaration and stop them doing this.
I am considering how to proceed, but will take into account that this is the third time in a row ‘a mistake was made at the outset’ in connection with my assessments.
I can draft the Particulars etc myself, but if anyone or any organisation is able to provide some support, it would be appreciated. The paperwork side shouldn't present any problems, but I'm likely to have difficulty coping in a courtroom as I'm not always at my best in social situations.
It seems DWP made a decision over a month ago on my entitlement based solely on an ESA85A from Maximus which only mentions one descriptor and gives conflicting information on prognosis (2 years and in the longer term - I asked for 'severe conditions'). DWP say they didn't have access to my ESA 50 or any of the medical evidence I sent in, including the letters I paid for. Is it me, or does it sound pretty unreasonable to make a decision without all the paperwork? As they've not bothered to tell me the decision yet, do I have to wait before I can ask for mandatory reconsideration?
Also, the ESA85A only has space for 3 very short sections - advice, prognosis and justification - no mention of what conditions I might suffer from, medication etc. Is there missing information or is this the norm now? The form last time was about 20 pages long.
Finally, one piece of evidence which Maximus allegedly used is a 'Med3' which I believe is a fit note. The last time I had to send a sick note would have been in 2004 or possibly 2005, and I don't think they were called fit notes then. In any case, anything that old is not likely to be very relevant to my condition now.