esa reconsideration appeal

helen1234 wrote: gordon how is it possible to refute what the medical examiner said ,i know you always advise not to get bogged down with the report ,but when the decision maker has made his decision on her lies ,i feel i have to discredit what she wrote to make any headway,but dont know how to do this ,sadly the interview was not recorded

Without pushing it as the way forward, tribunals treat the evidence provided by the claimant and the DWP in a much more even way than the DWP do, they know that there are sometimes significant errors in the assessment report.

Try and find factual inconsistencies.

Reports break down into two sets of information; factual information and opinions.

It's really difficult to argue directly against an opinion, because to a considerable extent it is based on the assessors experience and training. As a simple example, (fact) the claimant tells me that they regularly do the shopping, [opinion) as a result I would expect them to be able to walk more than 200m because they would easily walk this distance or more in an average sized supermarket

SO you want to undermine the fact on which the opinion is based so you might reply any or all of the following;

- Although I do shop, I have no one to do it for me, I am in extreme pain when I do.
- I did not say that I regularly shop at my supermarket
- I shop in my corner store
- I haven't left the house for three months
- I said I do the shopping online each week
- I shop occasionally but I am then ill and limited to my bed for several days

and where possible support that with evidence.

- prescribed pain medication
- letter from doctor
- online shopping receipts
- history of home visits from doctor/nurse

Look for inconsistencies in the report, perhaps they have said you have a restriction at one point in the report where it doesn't score points and then that you don't elsewhere where it does.

However, the bottom line is that you will only score the points if you have shown that you meet the criteria, it doesn't matter how much yo show the report to be inaccurate if you haven't also shown that you should score sufficient points for an award.

Gordon

helen1234 wrote: gordon what do you make of this, it is a paragraph from my reconsideration notice ,exceptional circumstances "in my opinion overall the evidence does suggest that there would be a substantial risk to mrs ***** or anyone else should she undertake work related activity or there would be a risk to mrs ***** on her journey to the work focused interviewer provider or whilst there "

This is saying that the assessor believed that you met the criteria for Regulation 35 which if accepted would result in a Support Group award

Gordon

helen1234 wrote: if who excepted it ,this was part of the paper work that come from the decision maker ,who then went on to say that i had not won my reconsideration to be put on to support from wrag ,dont know whats going on

Sorry, you did say but I thought is was from the assessment report.

Just to confirm, it definitely says "the evidence does suggest" and not "the evidence does not suggest"?

If the former, then it could be a typo, but this statement is definitely consistent with an SG award and would be something that you should draw to the attention of the Tribunal panel.

Gordon