Home assessments for ESA

I’m just wondering if anyone has had any success getting home assessments arranged for ESA without letters from medical professionals.

PIP are happy to give assessments at home as long as you detail the reasons, but there doesn’t appear to be any way to get them to agree to home assessments for ESA unless a GP or specialist provides a letter.

I have a client who suffers from Chronic Fatigue/ME - she is completely housebound with the illness and has found her GP to have absolutely no understanding of the illness. While they referred her to a ME unit in the local hospital, due to her being completely housebound she was unable to attend, which in the eyes of the GP means she doesn’t want to get better.

The last time she was assessed she was able to attend the assessment centre in a wheelchair, unfortunately she has deteriorated to the point that she couldn’t even attempt to do this as she’d likely end up in hospital.

The last time she requested a letter from the GP she paid the £20 and got back “Miss ***** does not feel she can attend the assessment centre” which is of no use to anyone.

Has anyone managed to get around this refusal for home assessment without a letter from a GP?

I have contacted her local MP in the hope she might be able to contact the assessment provider directly and get them to budge.

Can anyone think of any other avenues we could go down?

I have heard of people being taken to a WCA in an ambulance on a stretcher but obviously that is totally inappropriate.

I would be making a complaint to the GP and changing doctor ASAP. Threatening Maximus with an Equalities Act claim for failure to make reasonable adjustments perhaps? Pushing for a paper based assessment? This may be difficult without the medical evidence I suppose. Taking it to the top and making as much noise as possible?

AlanRAISE - 02 February 2018 01:52 PM

. While they referred her to a ME unit in the local hospital, due to her being completely housebound she was unable to attend, which in the eyes of the GP means she doesn’t want to get better.

The treatment of people with severe ME/CFS is an absolute disgrace. Our local CFS clinic is 25 miles away and despite years of experience of dealing with chronically disabled people they can’t even get a Skype connection to work for people unable to attend.

I would advise anyone who hasn’t seen it to watch the film Unrest for an understanding of the scale of ME/CFS and the devastating impact it has on many people’s lives https://www.unrest.film/ Perhaps put a DVD in the post to that idiot of a GP too.

As Billy says… letter before action usually makes things move in mysterious ways.