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Migrated to UC and now received UCD50 form

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8 months 1 week ago #289194 by Redamber
My wife has some serious health conditions, and we were told to fill in UCD50.

She has Liver Cirrosis, chronic pancreatitus, chronic Portal Vein Thrombosis (blood clot in portal vein), Esophageal varices, Portal hyperthension, obstructed bile duct, excessive itching and painful knees.

She gets extremely fatigue, gets nauseaus and results in headaches and painful abdomen which radiates to the back, and she vomits alot. When she walks she gets breathless get dizzy and lightheaded which cause pains in abdomen and she feels leg pains. In the past she has fallen down a few times and she no longers goes out by herself as she has anxiety that she will fall. She gets very itchy and at night the itchiness is extreme and she is unable to sleep.

Clearly she is not fit to work and her health will deteriate and risk her esopageal varices to burst should she do exert some exercise. She gets memory loss sometimes. Filling this form feels difficult and i cant see how we can put our situation in the form.

For example can you pick a bottle of milk up or can you pick an empty large box.

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8 months 1 week ago #289216 by Gary
Hi Redamber

Welcome to the forum.

You might want to have a look at the following FAQ which explains where everything is; www.benefitsandwork.co.uk/guides-for-claimants/faq/forum.,

Unless your wife has a terminal condition, she will need to complete the form to get placed in the LCWRA group. We do have a good guide to help you complete the application form; help-for-claimants/esa1 alternatively you can ask your local Welfare Rights Organisation for help; advicelocal.uk , DWP do also offer a visiting service.

So questions 1-10 are concerned only with physical problems you cannot score if the underlying reason you cannot complete an activity is due to a mental health issue. Questions 11-17 are about mental health issues and there is a similar restriction that limitations cannot be the result of a physical problem.

Reaching is pretty much as the Guide describes it, ESA is different from PIP in that issues related to "reliability" are not defined in the ESA legislation but rather enacted through various UTT Decisions, this does not mean that they have any less applicability but you will need to go into much more detail about your limitations.

So you need to be able to raise your arm repeatedly, there is no definition of how many times is reasonable but the fewer times the better. The pain phrase for ESA is "discomfort", for some activities, not all the legislation refers to "significant discomfort", "severe discomfort" would be considered as worse.

The underlying work activity for Question 4 is working at a supermarket till picking up an item, passing it by the scanner and putting it down again, so repeatability is a key issue. The items considered are very specific so you can try them at home to check your capability just remember that this is not about picking them up from the floor or similar a better example would be the worktop in your kitchen. You can only score if you are unable to complete the activity with both arms, a restriction in one arm will not score.

Question 5 is about restrictions in the hand, again you need to be unable to complete the tasks with both hands to score.

Question 8 is about physical restrictions that prevent you from getting around safely, so primarily sight problems but you may also be able to score for deafness as well.

Question 12 is about a claimant not being aware of hazards, for example not realising the importance of crossing a road at a crossing for example. Being aware of the hazard but being unable to avoid it will not score, you genuinely need to be unaware of the danger.

Gary

Nothing on this board constitutes legal advice - always consult a professional about specific problems
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