Work capability assessment, I scored 0 points.

poppy12345

I'm sorry but i'm sticking by what i said that your posts are far too long for anyone to sit and read. If your Tribunal submission was anything like that then they probably also got bored and totally missed your point.

As you've been told many times before it doesn't matter that your GP, Consultant, Wife or friends think that you're not fit for work, you were found fit for work. I really do think you'll be wasting your time trying to find an error in law here because you don't think they took your evidence into consideration. That is not an error in law.

You can certainly try and start another claim for a new or worsening of an existing condition, as Ames has suggested This may not be possible because of your NI contributions and i do believe your wife works? So you won't be entitled to Income Related benefits.

Ames

poppy12345 wrote: »

I'm sorry but i'm sticking by what i said that your posts are far too long for anyone to sit and read. If your Tribunal submission was anything like that then they probably also got bored and totally missed your point.

As you've been told many times before it doesn't matter that your GP, Consultant, Wife or friends think that you're not fit for work, you were found fit for work. I really do think you'll be wasting your time trying to find an error in law here because you don't think they took your evidence into consideration. That is not an error in law.

You can certainly try and start another claim for a new or worsening of an existing condition, as Ames has suggested This may not be possible because of your NI contributions and i do believe your wife works? So you won't be entitled to Income Related benefits.

I agree with this, including that sadly you probably don't qualify for any ESA now, I'd forgotten about your wife working.

Morglin

aaronlowe wrote: »

I went to a meeting with DWP in which they spoke to advisers who work in Inverness. Those are advisers that work for the DWP. The Inverness DWP advisers told the Edinburgh DWP advisers that since ESA started, 100% of claims had been rejected. The Edinburgh DWP advisers were shocked. They didn't even know what was happening inside their own organisation.

Basically, it is impossible to receive ESA without going through a tribunal. Expect 9 months to a year and you will get no money to support yourself during that process. My wife is a benefits advisor and this is what happens to everyone except extreme cases. The system is designed to be broken but when you go to tribunal you have a good chance.

No, it's not imposdible to get ESA without a tribunal...many claims, in fact the majority, go through simply either by paper review or an assessment.

Some do go wrong, and then that's the point to ask for a MR/Tribunal.


Lin

poppy12345

aaronlowe wrote: »

I went to a meeting with DWP in which they spoke to advisers who work in Inverness. Those are advisers that work for the DWP. The Inverness DWP advisers told the Edinburgh DWP advisers that since ESA started, 100% of claims had been rejected. The Edinburgh DWP advisers were shocked. They didn't even know what was happening inside their own organisation.

Basically, it is impossible to receive ESA without going through a tribunal. Expect 9 months to a year and you will get no money to support yourself during that process. My wife is a benefits advisor and this is what happens to everyone except extreme cases. The system is designed to be broken but when you go to tribunal you have a good chance.

Sorry but that's not true. I've been in the Support Group for more than 5 years and i have never been to a Tribunal or asked for a MR. Same for many other people too.

w06

if you want advice OP, can I suggest you summarise in two sentences what you would like advice on? I'm sure I'm not alone in not wishing to wade through dozens of paragraphs of he said she said.

Iwanttobefree

I've given up.

I appreciate people are trying to help, at the same time you fail to understand my mental state isn't quite what it should be, hence I repeat myself, go round in circles, try to explain every little point (I suppose it's a bit like OCD). Again I can't help being like that.

I've explained numerous times how bad my mental state was when typing many of these posts.

But to summerise should anyone be interested.

1) GP was messing around with meds, hence I was effectively high at my medical assessment, smiling like a Cheshire cat.

2) I've filled in my DWP form and attended various medical assessments over the past 18 years, never had a problem before, hence it didn't occur to me to seek advice.

3) On advice from this forum, I spoke to the CAB about representation. They passed me on to DIAL.

4) Dial didn't want to know, they simply kept repeating "Sorry, if we haven't filled out the original DWP form then we cannot represent you"

5) An idiot can see from my many ramblings on this thread that I obviously need help with this.

6) I took this forums advice and sent a short, concise conclusion to the Tribunal and had the contents verified by someone on this forum first.

7) At the Tribunal, I could hardly stay awake, yet alone think straight, but there's nothing to take this into consideration.

8) The Tribunal has penalised my GP report as at the time she had only been my GP for a year (but has full access to my medical records unlike the tribunal. I didn't choose to change GP, my GP left after a merger

9) The Tribunal ignored how my depression affected me (which was described in the conclusion) and state I'm sociable because I went to my own sons graduation and best friends funeral.

10) The tribunal ignored my explanation of what the surgeon meant by saying I had no residual pain.

11) The tribunal said I can clearly walk more than 50 meters when I didn't say I couldn't. I claimed under the section where doing it repeatedly causes me significant pain.

12) They mention me being refused DLA in the past when it was nothing to do with my current illness and was over 10 years ago.

13) They say I haven't claimed PiP but wasn't aware it was an option (until this forum advised me otherwise)

14) They say that contrary to my claims there has been no further GP input etc such as a referral to a pain clinic, completely ignoring me telling them that she is trying first to do it with pain meds, and I am seeing her regularly about it.

15) Likewise they ignored me telling them my GP was also monitoring my depression and wanted me to contact Wellbeing.

16) They didn't look impressed that I belong to a health club but wouldn't let me explain why that is.

17) They claim that I have a social life when the exact opposite is true.

etc etc etc

Now, keeping this extremely brief, I feel that I am being penalised for not being able to get proper representation, when I tried to get some I was told no one would.

I'm penalised for the state of my mind due to meds at the original assessment.

In a perfect world (I realise we don't live in one) rather than just decide they don't believe me,

I would have prefered it if they contacted my surgeon for clarification

I would have prefered it if they had contacted my GP and physio for clarification about my pain levels and my depression.

If this was done, everything I said would have been verified by them.

As I said, following on from my GP trying different meds, I now have an appointment for both a sleep clinic and a pain clinic, and have had my depression scored by a CBT.

This isn't stuff I've asked fore since the tribunal, it was already part of the process.

Had the Tribunal been a month later, the outcome could have been different as I would have letters from the CBT about my depression, appointment for the pain clinic etc, but it's absolutely tough, there's nothing at all I can now do about it.

Likewise if they had sat me down and given me the reasons why they are refusing it, (I understand thats not how the system works) , I would have asked them to contact these people and explain to the Tribunal why are plainly wrong.

TLDR:

The reasons for them refusing the Tribunal are factually incorrect but I was not believed. Even though I now have written proof, it was impossible for me to get it before hand as my GP was going through a process of trying different things for me, and the process hadn't got that far at the time of the tribunal (but wqas in progress)

Even though I can now prove they are wrong, my hands are tied, I'm at the end of the road.

aaronlowe

DWP and even Tribunal logic is extremely unintuitive and nonsensical. I make no criticism - that's the way it is.

So, it is imperative that you get representation. You said that DIAL turned you down but their reason is strange. I was represented by CHAI and they were never part of the original DWP application.

It's a postcode lottery. Unless you live in Edinburgh you won't have access to CHAI. All I can suggest is that you keep trying to find a good representative. They all have different rules about who they will or won't represent. DIAL is not normal in that respect.

These representatives have a lot of experience of all the pitfalls and the nonsensical logic of the system, so you don't need to understand it and it doesn't have to make sense. Personally I couldn't cope with the stress of mounting my own appeal. It would totally do me in. You need representation and if you don't succeed to find it the first time then keep searching until you do find it.

Until you have good representation, you're just onto a loser. MSE can't help you with all the details of your case. You need representation.

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bspm1

I believe the original poster lost his ESA after a reassessment, he asked for a MR, award stayed the same, he took it to appeal, lost appeal, so not sure what representation he needs now.

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Ames

IWTBF - this is all going round in circles. We're not going to be able to help you here because you're simply not capable of drilling down into the relevant information for anyone to say whether there's been an error in law or not. I suspect not, which means that you're at the end of the road for ESA.

You'd have to try and get a specialist to look at it. If your DIAL can't help then they can't help. Some aren't even doing benefits work anymore because of funding cuts. Did you go back to CAB and explain that DIAL couldn't help?

I think your only chance - and it's very, very slim - is to get help from CAB. Or perhaps MIND or the ME society could help. Going to the Upper Tier Tribunal is very specialised though.

I truly think, and I don't mean this as criticism, that when you say 'the tribunal ignored', it's actually that you couldn't get your point across, and they had to move on to the next question. They would have had other hearings on that day and just wouldn't have had the time to let you ramble through your explanations, assuming they'd be like they are on here.

I'm not saying this to make you feel bad, but to make sure you go into the PIP process aware of this problem, and make sure you get help. Speak to DIAL and see if they can help you right from the start with the PIP application. If they help right from asking for the forms then the timeframes should be ok for getting their help right through the process.

I'd suggest you also explain to them that you'll need longer appointments than usual because of your cognitive problems.