ESA Support Group

yappycat

melbury wrote: »

It is terrible that you received a further form only 3 months after winning your appeal. From what I can see it looks like ATOS make the decision as to when you will be reviewed rather than the DWP, would you say that is correct?

I am definitely going to phone the DWP this week and try to find out if they can give me any idea when the next ESA50 is likely to drop on the mat! I might also suggest to them that it is entirely in ATOS's interest to keep recalling the same people over and over again. It just wears you down doesn't it.

I'm not sure who sets the review date - doesn't say anything in my Tribunal Decision to the DWP about reviewal recommendations, Atos wouldn't have been directly informed (or even interested in) of the date/outcome of my appeal. Personally I think the computer at the DWP decides hehe, it was 12 months since I'd completed my last ESA50 so that kind of makes more sense to me.

Had it just been a simple process of: fill form - get decision - no appeal needed, then it would be a form you might need to complete once a year which seems reasonable enough to me. Except that its not a simple process for everyone, and I can understand the mindset of those who might receive another form soon after an appeal is ended, contemplate the potential of another gruelling and stressful appeal process, and just tell the DWP to shove it :eek:

However I am not one of those people. If they want me to jump their hoops then I'll do it, it's not summat you should take personally, it's just one big faceless system that fails some by trying to address the needs of many.
Let us know what info you get from the DWP on the reviews, I hadn't really thought about it until I read your post. I just thought it was an annual type of thing.

Oh one last thing! Ask the DWP to send you a copy of your form, As my condition hadn't changed I was able to use last years photocopied ESA50 as a 'cheat sheet' to complete the new one more quickly This mightn't have been the brightest idea seeing as I had to appeal last time round but being that I genuinely could not answer the questions any differently it was helpful just to copy the relevant info from the old form.
I also enclosed copies of the tribunal decision based on my appeal vs the last ESA50. Despite addressing every relevant disability descriptor with regard to my own illness they still sent me for the Atos medical, so that didn't work as a time-saving exercise - maybe it will for other people perhaps.