Help needed. Home assessment refused.

Hi,

I asked to be moved from the WRAG to the support group, as my illness has gotten worse.
In the past I have been given a home assessment, my last assessment was just over a year ago and the benefit dr came to my home.

I filled in that (awful soul destroying) form and got an appointment, then was told they needed a fax from GP for a home visit so wrote to my GP and asked for one.

I was charged £25 for the fax.

The Centre for Health and Disability Assessments (which is what the people dealing with me are calling themselves) have denied my request for a home visit. While I got different answers form different people I spoke to the final answer I got from the PR person who phoned me back was that the wording of my GP’s fax wasn’t right. That it said that I said I wasn’t able to travel that far. Not that my GP said I wasn’t able to.

So I asked my GP to write another fax. I have just been told by their secretary that my GP believes the wording of the fax is adequate and they wont be sending another one.

I am reasonably new patient to this GP and have only seem them a couple of times, and I expected to be asked to come in for an appointment before they sent the first fax. I wasn’t

I don’t know if I should be angry at the GP - they did write a fax and charge me for it. They wouldn’t have done that if they didn’t believe I should get a home visit would they?

Or if I should be angry at the Centre for Health and Disability Assessments, are they using any excuse to not give me a home visit?

I simply don’t know what to do. I have had the assessment pushed back as far as I can.

Do any of you have any advice or know what to do?

In desperate need for help

lme

Hi Gordon

I don’t know what my GP thinks, I have seen them only a couple of times and I thought they understood my illness (and all the issues that come with it), but maybe I was wrong. I don’t know what they put in the fax they sent.

But surely any fax from a GP requesting a home visit for a patient should be enough? I can’t imagine they’d write a fax for a home visit if they didn’t think it was necessary.

In my form I tell them I can only come to an appointment if it is nearby (ie within about 20mins travel) and in the afternoon. And even then it will take me weeks to ‘recover’. And yet they booked me in to a center more than an hour away and at 9am.

The two centers nearest to me are at least a hour away, and the damage to my health would be huge. After all my illness is much worse for weeks after attending a meeting at the Job Centre and that is only 5mins down the road, and this is why I have been asked to be moved to the support group.

I tried to explain to the CHDA that I am mostly housebound, and I can’t remember the last time I was well enough to leave the house for anything other that appointments. But was told that mostly housebound isn;t enough.

My appointment is for a week on Monday - I wonder if that is enough time to contact my MP. I will try.

Hi Ime,

I don't know what your condition is/are, but did you make it clear in your application form that you are physically unable to get to the appointment yourself due to.... symptoms. When I recently was told that I had to come off DLA and apply for PIP, I put on the form that as I can't walk without holding onto someone for support and even then it's only for about five metres, it's very difficult to even reach a vehicle. I also told them that I'm on home oxygen but don't have portable, so I would be extremely breathless on arrival at their centre. I said that I would need a public toilet near their front door as the breathlessness/lack of oxygen makes me feel as though I need to empty my bladder. I also told them that I would require a bariatric (heavyweight) wheelchair waiting at the door as I cannot manage the steps in their reception area. There might have been one or two more things, but I made it so clear that my physical limitations would make attendance at a centre almost impossible, and put the onus on them to supply a suitable wheelchair, that they granted me a home visit. I didn't have to get anything from my GP. It does sound like your GP doesn't know how to answer their forms/questions and probably doesn't understand about the "descriptors" etc, hence them being rather touchy about you letting them know that they didn't do it "properly".

Could you try appealing that decision by adding in lots of physical/mental/emotional reasons you can't reach the appointment and see if that makes a difference?

Hope this helps in some way. Good luck!

Hi again,

Just an update, I contacted my MP and have now been granted a home visit, while this assessment is far from over it is a huge relief that this small bit is now sorted.

Thank you Gordon for suggesting the MP and all your advice.

Thank you Katy, while I don't need oxygen or a wheelchair, your right I could have made it much more clear, exactly why I can't get to the assessment centre so far away. And how damaging to my health it would be for weeks afterwards. I was already planning a letter (a why I didn't go to the appointment letter) based on your suggestion with all these things in it when I got the phone call yesterday.

I’m feeling like a huge weight has been lifted.

Thank you again guys.

lme


P.S. I think at some point I will want to write a complaint about how CHDA have treated me - wrong phone numbers, being given wrong information, not being sent the correct letters, having to chase them, etc. Do you know who would be best to write a complaint to? Would it be the DWP? Or CHDA themselves?