£100 lost by not attending ESA appointment

red_devil

Confuseddot wrote: »

People have died after going to work.

People die thats a fact of life it may be there time or it may be the sanction or it could be the bus that run them over.

done be so silly there is no comparison.

People are having the money they are supposed to have by law to live on taken away from them on a whim by a lousy and uncaring government who would rather send money abroad, what are they supposed to live on, how are they supposed to survive, eat and pay rent.

Sanctions for people with no money cause untold misery and hardship and in some cases death. They do nothing to help people into work.

dktreesea

nannytone wrote: »

a lot of HCP that carry out the WCA are GP's already.

i don't think it is a bad idea at all for fully medically trained people ( rather than OT's, physic's, paramedics etc) to carry out assessments. Just that it's a bad idea to have the claimants own GP doing it

But a person's GP would likely have a very good idea of where their patient was mental health wise because of their long association with that person.


The problem with going to somewhere like ATOS and having a face to face assessment with a stranger, I don't see how they would be well placed to make any assessment about mental health that could, potentially, cost the taxpayer thousands of pounds every year.


It's putting a great deal of responsibility on people who really, don't have a lot to go on other than the person's GP report(s) and any other mental health experts they may have been referred to and met over the course of their treatment. They can't win. If they say yes, they are potentially ripping off the taxpayer. If they say no, as in the person's problems are genuine, but the assessor hasn't believed the experts' reports, it's likely that they will be overturned on appeal.


Just my limited experience, but the impression I have is that GPs don't sign people off work long term, for any reason, without good reason. You have to be signed off for at least 13 weeks to even get ESA.

missbiggles1

nannytone wrote: »

they are trained as per their job description ... they are not doctors.
most people would prefer their medical ailments to be assessed by a doctor, rather than a nurse. ( treatment is a different thing, but for diagnosis, i would argue that the majority would prefer a doctor)

to be honest, to get a true picture, the assessor should have more than a cursory knowledge of the claimants illness/disability.
i saw a physio at my WCA, who had never even heard of my condition and i had to explain to her what it was and what caused it.
doesn't instill a high degree of confidence, especially in those less articulate than myself.

the biggest crime is that the actual decision is made by someone with no medical training whatsoever.

Yes, they are trained to fulfil their job role but my point is that their skillset may well be more appropriate for the role of assessor than a GP's.

Regarding your own assessment, your actual medical condition is irrelevant because they're not going to treat you for it or look at various outcomes of treatment. What they need to be aware of are the issues for a partially sighted person in the workplace and how those issues affect your ability to work. The ideal professional to do that is likely to be an OT (which is why the RNIB works so closely with them) rather than either a physio or a GP.

missbiggles1

dktreesea wrote: »

But a person's GP would likely have a very good idea of where their patient was mental health wise because of their long association with that person.

The days when people had long term associations with a patient are long gone. Even those with severe disabilities or chronic conditions of one kind or another are far more likely to see a variety of GPs at their practice.

mumps

missbiggles1 wrote: »

The days when people had long term associations with a patient are long gone. Even those with severe disabilities or chronic conditions of one kind or another are far more likely to see a variety of GPs at their practice.

Not where we are, we have a small "branch" surgery which is normally run by two doctors from the main surgery, obviously they do have holidays and illnesses themselves, but it is a safe bet you will see one of them and if you want to see the same one each time you might just have to wait till the next day or a later appointment in the day unless they are on holiday or ill. It is a luxury to have that sort of relationship with a GP who knows you I suppose. We had a scare last year when we thought they were closing our surgery down but it did survive :T

We also have a nurse practitioner, I tend to see her as she is wonderful and has the luxury of longer appointments than the doctor.

NeilCr

mumps wrote: »

Not where we are, we have a small "branch" surgery which is normally run by two doctors from the main surgery, obviously they do have holidays and illnesses themselves, but it is a safe bet you will see one of them and if you want to see the same one each time you might just have to wait till the next day or a later appointment in the day unless they are on holiday or ill. It is a luxury to have that sort of relationship with a GP who knows you I suppose. We had a scare last year when we thought they were closing our surgery down but it did survive :T

We also have a nurse practitioner, I tend to see her as she is wonderful and has the luxury of longer appointments than the doctor.

Yes

Quite agree.

I live in a reasonable size town and my practice has 6-7 GPs. They actively encourage you to see the same GP, if possible, to build up a relationship

I am aware that other practices locally do this - but I also know it isn't necessarily common practice

dktreesea

There are good DWP employees in job centres, no doubt, but there are also those who delight in torturing vulnerable people, imposing unfair sanctions that are not within their remit to impose , e.g. sanctions that go on for six months, for two missed appointments, both self certified for being unwell, which is allowed under DWP regulations. Even though, in that particular case, a tribunal hearing went in favour of the claimant and their monies due were backdated, it was a harrowing process and that claimant needed a lot of support to go through that process. The farce should have been stopped at the mandatory reconsideration phase but dragged on, presumably because the DWP is banking on the claimants not being able to face going on to the tribunal.


I, for one, am sick of DWP staff who don't know their jobs and of managers who don't do their jobs properly, one of which is to monitor their staff and call them to account, and indeed protect claimants from them, when they are being sadistic.

missbiggles1

mumps wrote: »

Not where we are, we have a small "branch" surgery which is normally run by two doctors from the main surgery, obviously they do have holidays and illnesses themselves, but it is a safe bet you will see one of them and if you want to see the same one each time you might just have to wait till the next day or a later appointment in the day unless they are on holiday or ill. It is a luxury to have that sort of relationship with a GP who knows you I suppose. We had a scare last year when we thought they were closing our surgery down but it did survive :T

We also have a nurse practitioner, I tend to see her as she is wonderful and has the luxury of longer appointments than the doctor.

I think that's quite unusual these days - our practice had 7 doctors as well as locums and those doing training in general medicine so you even my husband (who needed to see a doctor frequently) only saw the same person a couple of times in about 5 years.

missbiggles1

dktreesea wrote: »

I have no idea what you are going on about. There are good DWP employees in job centres, no doubt, but there are also those who delight in torturing vulnerable people, imposing unfair sanctions that are not within their remit to impose , e.g. sanctions that go on for six months, for two missed appointments, both self certified for being unwell, which is allowed under DWP regulations. Even though, in that particular case, a tribunal hearing went in favour of the claimant and their monies due were backdated, it was a harrowing process and that claimant needed a lot of support to go through that process. The farce should have been stopped at the mandatory reconsideration phase but dragged on, presumably because the DWP is banking on the claimants not being able to face going on to the tribunal.


I, for one, am sick of DWP staff who don't know their jobs and of managers who don't do their jobs properly, one of which is to monitor their staff and call them to account, and indeed protect claimants from them, when they are being sadistic.

But you're still using emotive and totally inaccurate language.

"Torturing"? "Sadistic"? You don't help your argument using words like that because everybody just ignores the rest of what you say.

mumps

missbiggles1 wrote: »

I think that's quite unusual these days - our practice had 7 doctors as well as locums and those doing training in general medicine so you even my husband (who needed to see a doctor frequently) only saw the same person a couple of times in about 5 years.

The main surgery that our surgery is linked to is even bigger than yours, our two doctors work part-time in each surgery so there is always one of them at our surgery unless both happened to be off at the same time. I suppose we are lucky. Our old GP retired last year, he had run it pretty well single handed for some years with the occasional locum or trainee.