ESA - advice please

yellowduck_2

daska wrote: »

Was she medically qualified to comment on either the reasons for or the best treatment for your depression? The second part of the medical, the Work Focused Health Related Assessment, is supposed to provide information to help the adviser. If you hadn't had the medical then what on earth was she basing that 'advice' on?

No of course she wasn't qualified !! she was rude and aggresive and reduced me to tears. I would have complained only was still pretty unwell at this time. I also took in my porfolio with all my qualifications, my CV, sample references etc. Showed it to her and was told "You can put that away, I'm not interested" i actually don't think she understood some of the roles that I had been employed in, as they were quite specialist.

daska

melbury wrote: »

Had letter this morning saying to telephone and make the appointment for the medical assessment.

Have done this and thankfully we don't have to travel far and it will actually take place before the Pathway to Work interview, which I hope is a good thing.

So will just have to wait and see what happens and who we get on the day - it is in the lap of the gods now:(

The WFHRA is supposed to be the second part of the medical but a lot of the time they only do the first part and then call you back to do the WFHRA. I'd still ring the adviser and ask to put the appt back until both parts have been completed.

melbury

daska wrote: »

The WFHRA is supposed to be the second part of the medical but a lot of the time they only do the first part and then call you back to do the WFHRA. I'd still ring the adviser and ask to put the appt back until both parts have been completed.

Sorry I don't understand, what is the WFHRA?? We have both appointments, isn't that right then?

healy

melbury wrote: »

Sorry I don't understand, what is the WFHRA?? We have both appointments, isn't that right then?

WFHRA = work focused health related assessment.

It is carried out after the Work Capability Assessment, sometimes straight after and sometimes on a different date.

More here: http://www.tameside.gov.uk/esa/wfhra

seven-day-weekend

cit_k wrote: »

Did they include details of how to do so legally, ie how to set up as a business, declare tax, etc etc, did they offer help with that? Or did it just say sell amazon stuff from home??

Why should they?

melbury

healy wrote: »

WFHRA = work focused health related assessment.

It is carried out after the Work Capability Assessment, sometimes straight after and sometimes on a different date.

More here: http://www.tameside.gov.uk/esa/wfhra

Thanks for that.

So you are saying that having the ATOS medical assessment followed by the Pathway to Work interview is the wrong way around?

healy

melbury wrote: »

Thanks for that.

So you are saying that having the ATOS medical assessment followed by the Pathway to Work interview is the wrong way around?

No it is not the wrong way round.

I think the original intention was to have the medical and then the Pathways to Work interview but due to backlogs with the medicals the Pathways to Work interviews have come first some of the time.

NOTE: I am now referring to the Pathways to Work interviews and not the WFHRA, they are different things.

cit_k

seven-day-weekend wrote: »

Why should they?

Because they get paid to advise and help people, not just make random comments that someone could take literally and end up in serious trouble over if they followed the advice literally.

Jowo_2

cit_k wrote: »

Because they get paid to advise and help people, not just make random comments that someone could take literally and end up in serious trouble over if they followed the advice literally.

The Pathways to Work interviews are based around developing a personal action plan and discussing work opportunities so there is absolutely no need for them to give every applicant specialist info on how to become self-employed - that would be making them run before they could walk when these interviews are clearly pitched at discussing the candidates preferences and potential ways to resolve their worklessness.

There is loads of expert advice on the internet on how to start up a business and tax advice - lots of organisations exist to do this, such as Scottish Enterprise with other equivalent bodies in England/Wales.

There's no point in trying to load this info on a person during a brief initial interview who hasn't even considered this route before, is there? That would just be another bureaucratic duplication and unecessary public expense since there are other organisations that have this as their core specialism.

Oldernotwiser

cit_k wrote: »

Because they get paid to advise and help people, not just make random comments that someone could take literally and end up in serious trouble over if they followed the advice literally.

Anyone with any sense knows that if you set up a business working from home you need to declare your income and pay any necessary taxes and NICs. It's nobody's role to point out the bleedin' obvious and if they did you would probably say that this was patronising to people who are unwell!