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No GP medical report
- Karen123
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- Gordon
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Karen123 wrote: I an new to this forum. I suffer from ME/CFS. I recently had to reapply for ESA I was in the support group. I scored 0 points at the assessment . I telephoned DWP to say I was going to apply for a reconsideration and asked if they could send out all reports regarding my claim. I received the reports today, but there was no report from my GP so I gave them a call and the lady on the phone told me that there was no report from my GP on file and everything they had on file had been sent out. I was of the opinion that a report from my GP would have been necessary for them to make a valid assessment of my condition, does anyone know of the legalities of this .
I am afraid there is no legal requirement for those assessing you to contact your GP or anybody else involved in your care and the reality is that they rarely do.
Is your GP prepared to support you now that your claim has been refused?
The first stage to challenging a Decision is for you to request a Mandatory Reconsideration, this needs to be done in writing to the DWP, within one month of the Decision, to the office that dealt with your claim, have a look at our ESA MR & Appeal guide for details of the process, the ESA area also has template letters that you can use to make the request with.
www.benefitsandwork.co.uk/help-for-claimants/esa1
You should contact the DWP for a copy of the assessment report (ESA85), if you have not already done so, I would phone them but again follow up the request in writing. Once you have the assessment report you will have a better understanding of how the DWP Decision Maker has come to their conclusions and will then be able to argue against them.
Your primary task is to show that you meet the criteria, there are many reasons you may have failed, you need to address each of these but don't get bogged down in criticising the assessment report unless you can clearly show that it is incorrect, it is a lot easier to argue the facts of the situation;
"the assessor recorded that I walked 50m, I did but they have failed to document that I had to stop every 10m for a rest due to breathlessness"
than their opinions
"based on my observations of the claimant walking I believe that they can reliably walk more than 200m.
When you have a better idea of the issues with your claim, come back to the forum and we will do our best to help.
Gordon
Nothing on this board constitutes legal advice - always consult a professional about specific problems
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