ESA claim without sicknote ?? GP wont supply ??

More help needed around a client of mine. Sorry if stuff a bit obvious but im still learning my trade here!

My client is a 19 year old woman with learning difficulties and special needs who, due to difficult family circumstances, has had to move out from her mothers home and live with a family friend who is on JSA.
My client was claiming CA+IS as her mother on MRC DLA but her mother is apparently a bully who just stole all of her benefit every week and left her with nothing so she felt she had to leave due to this and other conflicts.
My client is doing a 21 hour per week college course to help with her special needs (she is also virtually mute as she will not talk around strangers).
My client has had an EMA refused due to the type of course she is on so no CB or CTC claimable and no JSA due either to her 21hrs at college (she would have JSA sanctioned anyway as she is in no fit state to honour her jobseekers agreement due to her inability to talk)
I checked the regs and apparently she can claim ESA while at college, but only if she is in receipt of DLA (she is on LRM) but her doctor refuses to issue a sick note saying there is no category of sickness that he is prepared to put her into, which should put the boot into any ESA claim.
Her JSA friend cannot afford to support 2 people on £65 a week, and apart from her £18.95 pw DLA (which pays her bus fares to college)she has nothing else to live on.
Im scratching my head regarding how to get my client any money to live on.
Any suggestions will be greatly appreciated

Thanks again folks!

I will look into the IS side of things now. She was enrolled at college to help her integrate more due to her learning difficulties. I hope this type of course counts as non-advanced education for the purposes of income support and that i can persuade the DWP she is officially estranged.
Again - thanks so much for your help. greatly appreciated.
i might even request a backdate!

Have you tried explaining to the GP the reason for needing a sick note?  Or, has your client considered changing GP to one who may be more empathetic to her problems?

It would be worth her checking with the college if they are able to help.  Most colleges have a “Learner Support Fund” which can provide financial help for students on low incomes.

You don’t necessarily have to have a Fit Note. The DMG has been tightened for ESA compared with IB, but look at para 42097 in http://www.dwp.gov.uk/docs/dmgch42.pdf. You may find another health professional able to provide a letter explaining her background and vulnerability. For example, if your client gets support from the local Adults with Learning Disabilities team, there may be a psychiatrist or specialist nurse involved.

The problem of course is that the GP is up to a point right. Learning disability is not an illness. That is why IB/ESA assessors are so bloody awful at even recognising it when it presents - they have no reason to know anything about it. An educational psychologist would be a lot more use.

If she cannot claim IS because she is not a qualifying young person, she can claim ESA and be treated as having limited capability for work without undergoing the WCA. To qualify under these rules she needs to be in education, in receipt of DLA and not a qualifying young person (p161 of CPAG). This should then bypass the need for a doctor’s note.