Called in for medical assessment after winning esa appeal

epitome

I will not be replying further until you come back and say what the appeals department a Decision Maker has told you.

Request hand-off call back progress chasing an appeal.

Make sure you take the call and ask

*If they are from DRT
*If they are a Decision Maker
*Have they got the appeal win notification?
*How long will it take?
*Their opinion on closing the existing claim 2, while waiting for appeal win to be processed and then claim 1 being re-opened going forward.


Whomever you ask...Alice, me, DWP DRT DM, CAB, Welfare Rights....
They all will only give you an opinion....everyone thinks their opinion is right, I certainly do, Alice does....but no-one will be able to back up that opinion with any DWP guidance or legislation because to do so would take a huge amount of work, and no-one has the time or knowledge to do that for you.

I can promise, that whatever you decide to do...if things go wrong, I will help you as much as I can to get you out of that trouble....I have people I can ask for chapter and verse...but asking them takes weeks due to the complicated nature of the enquiry and the answer...so I am unable and unwilling to do that for you now as it is too late and because we don't yet have a single scenario to ask them about all we have is what would be the case if
A happens then B happens
or
if C happens then D happens
or
E happens then F happens.

Alice_Holt

Rose27 wrote: »

Alice Holt - Can you confirm with evidence if possible.....

Thanks

Rose, I'm afraid I can't quote sources for this from the internet. Which is why I have used "I think" through this thread. Your Benefits Caseworker may be able to give you a copy of pages from the CPAG Welfare Benefits Handbook which confirms this.

You say that Welfare Rights, Citizens Advice and the DWP have told you that if you cancel your current claim then your old claim will be cancelled also because your new claim takes place of your old claim.

Why do you feel the need to try to validate this advice on a public forum?

Epitome & I have both tried to help you but we obviously have differing views, and I can only suggest you follow the guidance of your Benefits Caseworker. Please listen to the options they present to you, and chose the one with the least risk of losing your ongoing ESA payments.

Rose27

Alice Holt I asked Welfare Rights whether I could get paid during my appeals process, I brought up the issue of two disallowances and was advised that I should receive payment, however this was not the case, the law is clear on this matter. Advice workers only know so much. My hope was to find somebody who either knew the relevant law with sources or who has personally been through the same experience as myself. Both your answers are very informative and well thought through, however as of yet, the ability to continue a claim after tribunal instead of a more recent claim where no assessment has taken place & where the condition had got significantly worse, has neither been demonstrated or refuted with reference to relevant law. Both outcomes seem equally plausible, although in my biased opinion, it seems only fair that if DWP accept the tribunals decision, then I should never of had to make a new claim as I should've been awarded WRAG. The decision overturned by the tribunal caused disruption and I feel as the decision was overturned, that disruption should now be minimized and I should have the right to continue my old claim. However I don't know how the law views this.

Rose27

epitome I will call them, thanks for your questions, good guidance. If you don't mind, could you tell me if I would have to cancel my new claim before DWP have time to decide what I should be paid, in order for them to pay me in accordance with the tribunal decision from the time of the assessment til ongoing. Can I wait until DWP accept the tribunal decision and then cancel my new claim? Does it matter at what point I cancel my new claim? (as long as it's before medical).

epitome

Rose27 wrote: »

epitome I will call them, thanks for your questions, good guidance. If you don't mind, could you tell me if I would have to cancel my new claim before DWP have time to decide what I should be paid, in order for them to pay me in accordance with the tribunal decision from the time of the assessment til ongoing. Can I wait until DWP accept the tribunal decision and then cancel my new claim? Does it matter at what point I cancel my new claim? (as long as it's before medical).

No it would not matter as long as you do it before the medical....and medicals can be rearranged - only once though. However leaving things to last minute is never a good idea.

About that other case I know of, that claimant could have been put in the Support group by tribunal (I can't remember), which would logically render the claim 2 (for worsening) irrelevant.

In your case, being in WRAG from tribunal, the new assessment is relevant to see if your claim for worsening is valid.

But I maintain ....

I do not know what will happen to both claims if you attend and fail the medical. I would assume that in your case it would result in claim closure of both claims with little possibility of success of reopening based on claim 1.... and eventual payment on appeal rate £73. And there is no guarantee you would win a second appeal.

If you do not attend the medical:
Before the tribunal is accepted...it may be possible to get it reopened on claim 1
After the tribunal is accepted...it may not be possible to get the claim re-opened on the basis of claim 1 because claim 1 is wrag not sg


I also maintain that you can close the claim 2 before the medical on the basis that your appeal of claim 1 has been allowed and you want your esa to be reopened on claim 1 when it is processed. As they are 2 separate claims it should not affect claim 1.

I will also say if you close claim 2, and the DWP agree to pay you WRAG arrears (if entitled) up to the point of claim 2 closure,, but refuse to re-open and pay beyond that without a new claim.....the simplest solution would be to make a new claim to ESA backdated to the very next day, the new claim could not, in any universe, be refused. However, when you make a new claim you can be referred for a new medical, and also if the New claim DM considers you have worsened they can choose to pay you assessment rate on the new claim instead of WRAG rate - but I think this is unlawful and I would help you to appeal for full wrag rate (if entitled). This way at least gives you the freedom of failing the medical in 3 - 6 months rather than failing the medical now.

What date did you phone up and make claim 1 on?...i.e. Jan Feb Mar 2017 ?

Rose27

Thanks for your reply epitome. I think I made my old claim on 27th September 2016.

TELLIT01

I have to confess to now being a little out of touch with ESA regs, and they may have changed since I stopped working on ESA.
I would not be looking at cancelling any claim at this stage as, theoretically at least, all the issues of the old and new claim should be unwound once ESA receive notification of the successful appeal. At the same time, it's important that you don't ignore any DWP communication whether it's in reference to the original claim or the more recent one.
The quality of staff, and therefore of the information provided, by CAB and other similar organisations varies massively, and I certainly would NOT put my faith in them always being correct. I certainly couldn't count the number of calls I took from claimants who had been given information by 3rd parties which was quite simply the total opposite of reality!
The advice given in #22 from epitome looks to be a solid base to work from.

Rose27

epitome can you please tell me what DRT and DM means. Thank you

NeilCr

TELLIT01 wrote: »

I have to confess to now being a little out of touch with ESA regs, and they may have changed since I stopped working on ESA.
I would not be looking at cancelling any claim at this stage as, theoretically at least, all the issues of the old and new claim should be unwound once ESA receive notification of the successful appeal. At the same time, it's important that you don't ignore any DWP communication whether it's in reference to the original claim or the more recent one.
The quality of staff, and therefore of the information provided, by CAB and other similar organisations varies massively, and I certainly would put my faith in them always being correct. I certainly couldn't count the number of calls I took from claimants who had been given information by 3rd parties which was quite simply the total opposite of reality!
The advice given in #22 from epitome looks to be a solid base to work from.

I’m pleased to see that you put your faith in CAB being always correct. I suspect that you don’t mean that but, in my experience, that sums up the inaccuracy of DWP information.

And yet the OP tells us that the paid DWP staff gave the same advice as CAB! Wow.., Who’s right.

Personally, I’d be with Alice on this and trust the advisor. But I’d go back to them and ask where they got their information from. And get to look at it. CPAG is pretty good.

TELLIT01

Thanks for picking up on the error NeilCr. I have edited my previous post to correct it - added NOT!