Forum Home → Discussion → Work capability issues and ESA → Thread
Unreasonable repeat WCAs
| Poll: Are your clients being re-assessed for ESA unreasonably? Total Votes: 35 |
|
|---|---|
| Yes | 30  |
| No | 4 |
| Don’t know | 1 |
One of the organisations I do work for supports people with lifelong, deteriorating conditions. Almost all have received IS/IB/SDA for many years and when assessed for ESA, almost always end up with the Support Component, often without the need for a face-to-face assessment., All who have been in the WRAC have ended up getting the SC after appeal, revision or supersession as appropriate.
Since DWP announced a couple of months ago that they were restarting the process of reassessing people on ESA, I am becoming really appalled at the way people are being subjected to the pressure and uncertainty associated with a re-assessment.
I have now had to deal with quite a few who clearly qualified for ESA with the SC and where anyone with half a brain would know that they won’t improve, yet 12 months later, out comes another ESA 50. Of course Maximus have a direct financial interest in recommending frequent re-assessments.
We went through a phase in the early days of ESA, but it dried up after DWP suspended it because it just created a backlog for ATOS at the time. Of course we may see a further suspension when the inevitable backlog rises again.
I intend to mount a challenge to this; clearly it’s not an appealable decision, formal complaints have got nowhere (the concept of how the law determines use of discretion is lost on DWP staff in my experience). That leaves the option of JR.
is anyone else planning anything similar? Have you had any success by trying other challenges? For the sake of discretion, because DWP staff read these pages, please feel free to email me direct at .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) if you’d rather not post on here.
I’ve certainly seen a recent upsurge in SG clients being sent ESA50s recently and at least 3 of the clients separately said that they’ve been told that they can only be placed in the SG for a year at a time.
I’ve certainly seen a recent upsurge in SG clients being sent ESA50s recently and at least 3 of the clients separately said that they’ve been told that they can only be placed in the SG for a year at a time.
Same here (although clients have not advised us they have been told about the one year at a time bit - yet). By chance I have an appt with such a client this afternoon.
They appear to be being particularly required of claimants with long term mental health conditions - although given the small number so far that could be a co-incidence. All of the cases we have seen so far had their previous assessment less than 5 yrs ago (originally DWP said routine reassements in SG at least every 5 yrs). However as many were placed in SG on scruitiny, rather than appeal, we have not seen the HCPs recommend period before re-assessment.
The clients can be described as ‘over the moon’ at the appearance of a new ESA50 as you might imagine. It will be interesting to see how many are confirmed as still meeting SG on scruitiny and do not have to deal with a F2F.
All the clients I have seen in this position have had long term mental health issues (coincidence or something more similar?)
[ Edited: 4 Mar 2016 at 01:55 pm by 1964 ]The poll doesn’t seem to work.
we get sent them for people we are corporate appointee for with high/high dla in some cases.
The poll doesn’t seem to work.
Apologies .. should be fixed now
Ludicrous. Utterly ludicrous.
One client born with severe neurological condition which means he cant speak, walk or move his arms or legs.
Been that way for 40 years.
Placed into SG of ESA 4 years ago when migrated from IS
New ESA50 received last week…........
Seems like all my clients are getting ESA50s and all of the current support group clients are getting reassessed and called up for medicals. Some of them had been migrated from IB/IS without medical, but others (mostly with mental health problems) had been placed in support group after appealing. One of them was contacted directly, although contact should have been through support worker. And the medicals seem to take place with at very short notice.
I had put this down to eagerness of new contractor to get paid for as many assessments as possible, but maybe it is done to make sure that as many claimants as possible will be kicked off support group?
A bit of both, I’d say!
A bit of both, I’d say!
I’m not so sure; I’ve seen a good few and Maximus haven’t dropped the ball yet. They also seem pretty amenable to conducting paper based assessments if they’ve got enough medical evidence.
Fair to say that my clients are on the severe end of things but all the same I was expecting a tsunami of work and it hasn’t materialised… yet! (gulp)
Ive been doing these SG ESA50s since the surge started in December
So far not a single one of these clients has come back to me to say they had to go for a WCA or been taken out of SG
Im hoping its just a cash cow for maximus, charging for reassessing folk with no hope of ever being taken out of the SG due to lifelong incurable conditions.
Money for old rope.
Our money…..