Forum Home → Discussion → Work capability issues and ESA → Thread
ESA - Should the DWP always carry out a medical when determing fitness for work!
forum member
Welfare rights adviser - Sefton Council, Liverpool
Total Posts: 3135
Joined: 16 June 2010
“Question is why would a tribunal “prefer” the ATOS HCP’s report more than medical evidence supplied by a doctor on the ESA 50”.
Tribunals have been doing that for donkeys’ years and that isn’t the first decision scolding them for it. Basically, it saves time when writing the statement of reasons and it’s shorthand for “we didn’t believe a word that the appellant told us”, without having to actually say so.
forum member
Welfare Benefits Team - Phoenix & Norcas
Total Posts: 279
Joined: 16 March 2012
I have just spoken to a DWP Manager from Basildon B.C this morning who confirms that any new claimant to ESA or any migration claimants from IB to ESA must undergo an ATOS medical if the Decision Maker cannot place the claimant in either the WRAC group or support group just from ‘scrutiny’ of the ESA50 itself. Off course the DM can make a favourable decision for the claimant without an ATOS medical if they are willing to place the claimant in WRAC or SG. NB The DM can find a claimant fit for work from the evidence of a newly completed ESA50 itself if there has not been any significant change of health from a previous ESA50 submitted some months ago.
forum member
Welfare Benefits Team - Phoenix & Norcas
Total Posts: 279
Joined: 16 March 2012
In the welfare Rights News Section dated the 16th May 2015….
Health care professionals must indicate which descriptors are satisfied where claimant not required to attend a face-to-face assessment for ESA
New DWP guidance
....tends to indicate that the DWP must carry out a medical if their opinion under scrutiny alone would be to find the client fit work!
here’s a link to the rightsnet news story -
and DMG memo 10/14 -
https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/306904/m-11-14.pdf
forum member
The Brunswick Centre, Kirklees & Calderdale
Total Posts: 1366
Joined: 22 July 2013
Looks like we all missed this at the time (although some people seemed to have worked it out) but a FOI request was answered by the DWP in Feb 14 as follows:
“No claimant can be found fit for work without undergoing a face-to-face assessment. In
addition, for new ESA claims only SG recommendations can be made using paper
evidence only. At repeat ESA assessments and for Incapacity Benefit Reassessments,
both SG and WRAG recommendations can be made using paper evidence only”.
https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/191985/response/478993/attach/3/FOI 2014 69 Response.pdf
hi -
foi response attached below to mend broken link (rightsnet doesn’t like spaces in urls) -
File Attachments
- FOI__2014__69__Response.pdf (File Size: 18KB - Downloads: 2143)
forum member
The Brunswick Centre, Kirklees & Calderdale
Total Posts: 1366
Joined: 22 July 2013
Thanks Ros. I seem to keep doing this.
How do I edit the text of links on rightsnet?
E.g. to replace ‘www.blahblahblah/blah/uploads/blahblahblah/m-1234/blah’ with ‘here’
Is there a handy user guide somewhere hiding away in plain sight somewwhere?
hi billy - we don’t have user guide but maybe that’s something we should look at!
been struggling to write down HTML for how to name link as page keeps picking up the HTML and acting on it (not unreasonable i suppose), so have put it in two parts which need joining with no gap -
<a href=
“put url here”>name of link here</a>
that will only work if no gaps in url though - if there are gaps will have to save it to desktop with a non gappy title and then attach to post.
hope that makes sense!
cheers ros
forum member
Mental health & welfare rights service - Wolverhampton City Council
Total Posts: 2262
Joined: 15 October 2012
Billy… to embed links type it like this:
SQUARE BRACKET url=“THE URL” SQUARE BRACKET the text you want to embed it in SQUARE BRACKET /url SQUARE BRACKET
or hit quote and look how it’s formatted here
forum member
Welfare benefits - Craven CAB, North Yorkshire
Total Posts: 1362
Joined: 16 June 2010
It looks like both UBB code (as DManville described) and html (as per ros’s post) are enabled on this forum. It would be nice if rightsnet could link an explanation page for UBB code, containing something like this somewhere, eg from the newreply page?
Either way, a hyperlink that contains a space still breaks the formatting, whether you just put the bare link in your post, or put it inside UBB, or in html tags.