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

WCA: HCP provided with IB85 awarding nil points from 2004

Pernish
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Welwyn Hatfield CAB - Adviser

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I am new to appeals but just wondered if DWP usually includes past reports. Don’t know if there was an appeal in 2004 or what happened next but cl has been on IS on grounds of incapacity since November 2007. At best seems irrelevant and at worst possibly prejudicial..

Dan_Manville
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Mental health & welfare rights service - Wolverhampton City Council

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They don’t usually include IB65s in the assessment process. I’ve seen forty or so ESA55s (that’s the list of ingredients of the ESA assessment file) for conversion cases and not one IB65.

Pernish
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Welwyn Hatfield CAB - Adviser

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Sorry but this was not an IB65 (I think that’s the notification to the claimant?) but an IB85 - a Medical Report Form - produced in 2004…

Peter Turville
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Welfare rights worker - Oxford Community Work Agency

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It’s not unknown for previous IB/ESA 85’s to be included particularly in ‘migration’ cases. There is a string of UtT decisions concerning the relevance of previous reports and if/when DWP should include them.

We find that whether they are included is random with no explanation of why any previous report(s) was / was not included. We also find DWP are selective in what previous evidence they do include. For example, they will include an old 85 but not any additional evidence the claimant provided or the outcome of any appeal against any previous decision(s).

Pernish
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Thanks for the replies. As someone new to the field it’s helpful to see what is and isn’t usual. I’m rather surprised that a previous report (especially from such a long time ago and of no relevance) can be passed on by DWP to a third party without any consent. Naively I would have thought that there were issues of confidentiality… but then Atos “sharing” with Maximus is seen as no problem…

Jon (CANY)
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Welfare benefits - Craven CAB, North Yorkshire

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I had a case where DWP chose to include in the appeal papers an ESA85 from a prior assessment, but then they denied that it was at all relevant to the appeal ( this thread references some of the relevant principles and caselaw). I suspect that there is some DWP directive to include whatever previous medical happens to be available, but the appeal writers themselves might not understand why.

If you believe there would have been a more recent and more favourable report than the 2004 one, I’d be asking them to provide that too.

Pernish
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Welwyn Hatfield CAB - Adviser

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Thank you for that Jon - your’s was an interesting case. I’m sure you’re right and there must be a DWP directive somewhere about including the most recent report - even where it’s a decade ago! Unfortunately I don’t know what happened back then and cl is not very articulate - in fact I’m pretty certain she doesn’t understand anything about why or how benefits are granted or withdrawn. To give DWP the benefit of the doubt I am ready to believe that they would not include such an old report if there was something more recent available… (well I’m new to this field…)