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Top Incapacity related benefits topic #5057

Subject: "Incapacity Benefit- exemption from PCA" First topic | Last topic
murphs
                              

Senior Financial Inclusion Officer, Rethink. London
Member since
09th Sep 2009

Incapacity Benefit- exemption from PCA
Tue 13-Apr-10 12:17 PM

If someone has been in receipt of IB for some time but now has a report from a consultant psychiatrist which seems to indicate they would be exempt from the PCA on the severe mental health grounds, should they send the information to the DWP now and ask for an exemption or do they have to wait until their claim is up for renewal and are sent an IB50?

Thanks in advance for any help

  

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Replies to this topic
RE: Incapacity Benefit- exemption from PCA, steve_h, 13th Apr 2010, #1
RE: Incapacity Benefit- exemption from PCA, murphs, 13th Apr 2010, #2
      RE: Incapacity Benefit- exemption from PCA, Tony Bowman, 14th Apr 2010, #3

steve_h
                              

Welfare Rights Caseworker, Advocacy in Wirral, Birkenhead, Wirral
Member since
06th Mar 2006

RE: Incapacity Benefit- exemption from PCA
Tue 13-Apr-10 12:44 PM

Experience tells me you should wait until an IB50 is issued, otherwise your evidence will be banished to the DWP file store, away from the processing office.

Even when the IB50 is issued and you send evidence that reg10 applies the medical services still may send your client for a medical.
This happens regularly with our client's and irt causes complete nightmares because the client's don't attend for mental health reasons and they get their benefit stopped. We point out they should not have got sent in the first place, but more often than not the request falls on deaf ears.
This is because the decision to send for a medical seems to ly with Atos staff and not experience JCP staff.

  

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murphs
                              

Senior Financial Inclusion Officer, Rethink. London
Member since
09th Sep 2009

RE: Incapacity Benefit- exemption from PCA
Tue 13-Apr-10 01:20 PM

Thank you.

The client is so anxious about the PCA process and feels it is hindering his recovery, he wants to try and get the exemption sorted out before he has to go through it all but I didn't think that there would be an easy or straight forward way around it!

Cheers.

  

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Tony Bowman
                              

Welfare Rights Advisor, Reading Community Welfare Rights Unit
Member since
25th Nov 2004

RE: Incapacity Benefit- exemption from PCA
Wed 14-Apr-10 08:37 AM

Interesting question...

Mostly I agree with Steve but he says "We point out they should not have got sent in the first place...", which is what Murph's question is aimed at achieving.

The difficulty for me in the approach is the possibility that by attempting to get an exemption before the PCA comes up, you might actually prompt it and of course there are no guarantees that a DM will grant exemption anyway.

However, one of the problems of delaying is that the report might become out of date and worthless. Therefore, if the evidence is so good that refusing an exemption will be hard to justify and the risk to the claimant of having to undergo the PCA is great then I think I would probably give it a go - having made the client aware of the risk and taking a fresh instruction from him.

  

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