Order for ESA50 Decision-Making

Hi Derek, thank you so much for listing all those for me. I realised that I'd missed that answer (with the form numbers) in the FAQ - sorry that you had to duplicate efforts!

Hi Grace - I am still waiting to hear from Maximus too - its been 14 weeks - I email them each week for an update - each week they reply that my referral is still "waiting to be reviewed by a health professional" but last week they did add that they hoped to have reviewed it by the end of this week (not heard yet). So it is worth emailing them for updates - but its still a long wait

Thanks, Gordon, for getting back to me on both of those points - it is somewhat of a relief.

Hello, last week after 10 months of anxious waiting I finally received my letter saying that I had been placed (again) into the Support Group - what a massive relief!!! And I had no f2f. I purposely didn't e-mail Maximus or contact my local handling centre for an update as I was still being paid the SG rate whilst they were making a decision and for the sake of my health I really need to avoid all stress. Although last year's reassessment mostly involved copying&pasting from my 2013's appeal answers, I still read the ESA guide for edits and new information to it. I still feel incredibly grateful for this wonderful site and all the people who make it happen!

I find it annoying that when there's no f2f or appeal process that the DWP don't communicate with us how many points they awarded us, to which questions/descriptors, and how long we have before being reassessed. So I now want to write to my local handling centre asking for my ESA85A (decision/recommendations by Maximus HCP) and LT54 (decision by DWP DM). But before I do, I wanted to check some things by you so that I don't make things worse for myself:

A friend told me that when she received her decision letter that she'd been placed again into the SG, after a 'failed' f2f (recording machine broke during it and then no recall) - so essentially a paper-based decision, the CAB advised her not to contact her local handling centre because it could be misconstrued as a request for a Mandatory Reconsideration! I found this shocking that the CAB advisor could be so misinformed and passing this onto a claimant - surely the DWP local handling centre staff member receiving her letter would see that she's in the SG and no claimant in their right mind would be asking for a MR on this! Although she subscribes to B&W she can't remember why she went with their opinion and opted to not request her LT54.
1) Do you have any ideas of numbers of SG claimants who didn't have to appeal (because they were correctly placed into the SG straight away after assessment) and asked for their LT54 and ESA85A (or ESA85)?
2) Or do most just hang on ignorantly with anxiety for years until the dreaded brown envelope arrives again with their new ESA50 to complete?
I also want to see which descriptors were correctly awarded points so that I can see which of my answers need improving for next time.
3) (Re your latest newsletter) I'm also wondering how recent SG claimants have become aware that their reassessments are being deferred, if they didn't initially request their ESA85A (or ESA85) and LT54 to see when their next date was supposed to be? Similarly, how do they become aware of how many years it is being deferred for - surely the DWP is not going to waste their limited time and resources sending notification letters of this?

Thank you so much for any answers! I will be very grateful.