Frequency of medicals

I don’t get involved with ESA very often so this may be an obvious query to others.

Cl. is mother & appointee of adult son who has severe mental health issues.  He was on IRESA (not clear which group).  Had a medical about Feb. 2012.  Cl. describes it as a farce, lasting 5 or 10 minutes & not going into the issues at all.  Cl. then told that son was not entitled to ESA.  She appealed; decision reconsidered & son placed in IRESA WRA group.

Cl. has now received a form to complete for another medical.  I couldn’t understand why this should be demanded so soon after the previous one so rang JC+.  I was told that claimants in the WRA group have to have repeat medical assessments “every 3 to 6 months”, so what is happening is completely normal.  I find it difficult to believe they are doing this repeatedly for all WRA group claimants.  Is it the case please?  If not, what is the normal interval between medicals for WRA claimants?

Reading about the ESA claimant journey, I wasn’t too surprised to learn that

The DWP decision maker will then give a decision on the actual period they wish to
award ESA. This may be short term i.e. three months or any date up to a longer term
maximum of three years.

However, the disparity between income-related and contributory claimants did startle me:

Most ESA-IR claimants, who are expected to be able to return to work within 6
months will be required to take part in the Work Programme and be referred by
Jobcentre Plus. 
ESA-C claimants will be able to volunteer for the Work Programme.

So the referral to the work programme is not just based on what the claimant is able to do, it also based on what the claimant is costing the state.

Anyway, in regard to the question of repeat medicals, I recall that it has been reported on this forum that there is some informal policy in some BCs of asking for new assessments within a month of any successful tribunal award.

I’ve not seen anything to resolve the issue of “repeated and oppressive assessments” vs “obvious lifelong condition”.

We were given the same information by DWP last year before the Work Programme started about ESA-C claimants not being mandated. But I have at least 2 clients on ESA-C who have been referred to the WP by a JC+ adviser and they definitely were not told they had a choice.