ESA saying sick note expired when it hasn't

Charityworker

My daughter applied for ESA on 30th January and got a sick note from the doctor on which he put 30th March as the expiry date. Yesterday we get a letter from esa saying Her sicknote expires on 5th March. I phoned the doctor about getting another one and he said he won't write one until 30th March as as far as he's concerned the one he wrote is good enough until then. But ESA are saying they will stop her money if she doesn't get another one dated 5th March. So where do we go from here?

TELLIT01

ESA will still have the original sick note so call them again and ask them to check the end date because your doctor says it runs to the end of March. It is possible that the GP did put the wrong date on it. If you saw some of the mistakes GPs make with sick notes you would be amazed.

Poppie68

Phone the ESA office the chances are they have got the date wrong....it happened to me and when they checked they had the wrong date imputed... Your doctor would of checked your record when you queried it.. .in future try and get a photocopy before sending.

mad_max_2

This did this to me before, It was my GP's handwriting that caused the confusion.

Charityworker

Thanks for your replies. I'll phone them again on Monday at get them to check. He clearly wrote 30th March on it. My daughter suffers from severe anxiety and ocd. This hasn't helped.

HOWMUCH

If you request that they fax the original Med3 over to your GP they will confirm what the date is and they should refax it over to them. I work at a GP surgery and this has happened on more than one occassion. If your GP has put the wrong date then he will issue your daughter with another Med3. On hand written Med3's a GP normally put either a date or 3/12 which is 3 months.

paragon909

My doctors surgery doesn't use end dates, It's either a start date i.e 02/03/2015 until 13 weeks or 4 weeks etc. That works better in my opinion. Go get a duplicate sick note from the GP and check it, Go to your local job centre and get them to fax or send it to ESA, make sure to put your phone number on the top and fill it in correctly. That way they will call to verify they have and you can get them to check as they have more insight than the normal ESA call handlers.

JaneDoeJohnDoe

keep a copy of sick note. Once my benefit was stopped as the JC when they sent the sick note didn't check the other end (DSS centre) had got it. AFTER MUCH complaining from me when my money was cut it turned out that the DSS centre got a fax but it didn't print out properly & no one could be !!!!!d to contact the JC to get it resent!

Charityworker

Just to let you all know. I have been in touch with them today and it was their mistake surprise surprise. I had to wait 3 hours for them to phone back and they agreed that the note said 30th March. They advised we make an appointment for the doctor again now and ask for a 3 month note. What a waste of doctors time and government money having to keep going back for sick notes.

Thanks for all your replies.

TELLIT01

I'm glad you got it sorted, but disagree with you about a waste of time having to get sick notes. Without them anybody could claim for any non-existent illness, and believe me there are plenty who would!
Once you've been on benefit for 6 months your GP can give a certificate for any period.

Charityworker

I didn't actually mean what I think you think I mean. At our doctors he won't write a sick note unless you make an appointment to see him. So what I meant was it was a waste of time and money going to the doctors to get a sick note when you could just request one from the receptionist. For the first sick note fair enough.