WRAG to support

My adult daughter suffers from social anxiety and panic disorder and has been in the WRAG for a number of years. She has only had to see a job centre representative every 6 months or so.

Recently she has seen a new person at the job centre who, when told that my daughter's condition has worsened, told her to get new medical evidence and send in another form to get in to the support group.

The only evidence we have is from a therapist my daughter saw a few years ago. My daughter only ever goes to the doctor if there is something wrong with her and I am concerned that the doctor will therefore not be able to supply us with any new evidence. Can anyone advise as to what we should do please?

Thank you.

Hi andWelcome to the forum, you might want to have a look at the following FAQ which explains where everything is

Welcome to Benefits and Work

The first thing you should do is look at the Support Group criteria to see whether your daughter meets any of them. It won't matter how much worse she is, she will not be allocated to the Support Group if she does not satisfy at least one of these descriptors.

Qualifying for the Support Group

Reporting a change of circumstances will trigger a reassessment of the ESA. This will include an ESA50 form to complete and possibly a face2face assessment.

When reporting a change of circumstances, the onus is entirely on the claimant to show that a) the condition has worsened since the last decision and b) they now meet at least one Support Group descriptor. From what you have said, this might be difficult?

Are there likely to be any letters, from consultants or therapists, that have been sent to your daughter's GP? If so, she can ask to view her GP records and take a copy of anything that looks helpful. There could be a charge for this.

Requesting your medical records

Charging for medical records

All claimants will be subject to periodic reassessments, so you need to decide whether to report a change of circumstances or wait until the next scheduled reassessment. You can find out when this is likely to happen by phoning DWP and asking for the 'prognosis' which should be on the computer records.

Whenever the reassessment occurs, don't forget to make full use of our ESA guide

ESA claims and appeals

You might want to bookmark/favourite this on your web browser now so that you can find it easily in future. This will allow you to return with further questions/comments without having to start a new topic each time. It helps us enormously when everything relating to the same claim is kept in one place - and I hope you will find it useful too