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Forum Home  →  Discussion  →  Work capability issues and ESA  →  Thread

Medical certificate

JayKay
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Benefits adviser - Penwith Housing Association, Penzance

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Total Posts: 139

Joined: 14 July 2010

A client of mine has just submitted a sick note for her new claim for ESA.  Her GP gave her a six month certificate, but the DWP have said that they will not accept sick notes for more than three months.  This wasn’t mentioned during the telephone call to make the claim. 

Has anyone else come across this, and does it have any legal basis or are they just making it up as they go along?

Thanks

JK

benefitsadviser
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Sunderland West Advice Project

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Joined: 22 June 2010

I had this about 3 years ago for a client born with a genetic condition that he had from birth and wont improve.

ESA told me that as a rule 6 month sicknotes arent accepted as GPs cant reasonably predict that the claimant will still be ill in six months time. No exceptions!

They couldnt point to any caselaw to back it up, and i found it much easier to just (in this case) ask the GP for 2 X 3 months sick notes and post the second one in 3 months time.

Any other tactic tends to delay payment for the client, and i didnt want to leave them destitute just to prove a legal point with the DWP.

AdviceShop
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Advice shop - West Lothian Council

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Came across this back in August, client had submitted a 6 month sick line at the start of his new claim, DWP only accepted it for 3 months then stopped ESA without explaining that he could only submit a 3 month one at first.

Guidance is in this file, page 11: https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/399837/fit-note-gps-guidance-jan-15.pdf

“In the first six months of a patient’s condition, a fit note can cover a maximum of three months. If a condition has lasted longer than six months, a fit note can be for any clinically appropriate period up to an indefinite period’”

[ Edited: 26 Feb 2015 at 04:35 pm by AdviceShop ]
Jon (CANY)
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Welfare benefits - Craven CAB, North Yorkshire

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Previous thread, citing the legislation:
http://www.rightsnet.org.uk/forums/viewthread/7757/

My understanding is that if someone is moving from SSP to ESA, say, then they should be able to rely on a longer sick note, because they have already had 6 months of sickness during SSP. In practice, it’s almost always easier to get a another sicknote than to argue with DWP on this sort of issue, unfortunately.