ESA 0points - what happens now?

Afternoon everyone

Received letter today from the Tribunal Service informing me that they expect to be writing to me regarding a hearing date in 33-37 weeks time and to please allow that time to pass before ringing them with any queries!! I make that early March 2014 and my ESA will run out in April 2014 .

I have just been reading through some recent comments on here and found one talking about the SG descriptor which can apply for bowel incontinence and in the mods reply they say you must provide proof from GP, Nurse etc. I too might qualify under this descriptor but how can one provide proof of this?? It is one of the subjects which is very difficult to talk about, in fact I have hardly ever mentioned it to my gp except when I have asked for more Imodium.

At least I have my time frame now and can put together some more supporting evidence from people who have watched me struggle over the years and I am going to put even more on paper to try and show how my various conditions affect my daily living.

Thanks to you all.

Good Evening Mods

Am now starting to put more information together to send off to the Tribunal Service and still have some more questions !!

Can you get into the Support Group by achieving more than 15 points? This is something I have been trying to work out for ages and could not find a definitive answer . One of my strongest descriptors is the bowel incontinence and in 40 years of living with this I have never heard of an incontinence clinic for bowels. The only thing my GP more recently said, do you want me to refer you back to the Gastros in hospital, to which I declined as I know there is nothing more they can do. In fact it was in 1994 following a colonoscopy investigation that I fell off the hospital bed and damaged my lower back again and eventually lost my job as a Medical Secretary following 12 months sick leave with the lower back problems.

In my opinion I should be awarded 6 points each for 4 descriptors, 15 for bowel and following my reconsideration I was awarded 6 points for being unable to go places unaccompanied. So on my assessment (!!) I should get a total of 43 points. So I am assuming now that I need to write more about each descriptor which I consider I fulfil as I did do this on my original form and sent 2 typed pages with my appeal documents and it is evident that either they have not read what I have written or they just do not believe me and I do not know how I can overcome that. So much of what I suffer with is not provable so what else can I do? I am going to ask my sister to write me a letter of support as she has known me for 60 years and my Bowen Therapist who has been treating me for 16 years - she however is not keen to do this as she says that they never take any notice of reports from Complementary Therapists.

Sorry, did not men to go on but am trying to find out exactly what I need to do so that I can sort out more evidence even though I have got about 9 month wait.

Thank you all anyway, it is much appreciated and particularly in the past couple of weeks when the weather has been so difficult to live with for those of us living with chronic conditions.

Hi Everyone

When I received the letter from the Tribunal Service they said 33-37 weeks and please do not contact them before that time. Well I wanted to put some more thoughts together for the Tribunal and now I have just received a letter for Tribunal on 20th November - my day is just getting worse. My mother has been in hospital for over 2 weeks, bedbound for most of that time and they are sending her home tomorrow then I have just had this letter.
Working on their timescale the Tribunal would not have been until March next year so now I am absolutely panicking, shaking, etc. etc. because if they do not find in my favour I shall lose my money.
Do you think I still have time to send some more evidence ? and if so where would I send it?

Thanks.

Judith