Missing ESA 50 Medical Forms

I am unfortunate enough to have various physical and mental conditions which resulted in me claiming ESA and being placed in the Support Group last year.

The first time round was an absolute nightmare with my ESA50 being sent on time by me, but then lost by DWP/ATOS/Maximus/whoever had it and I was asked to fill in a 2nd ESA50.

Naturally I complied with instructions sent to me by DWP, but this resulted in two ESA 50 forms being on their systems which seemed to have caused even more confusion.

Strangely I hadn't received any paperwork for my 1 year renewal, but I called to enquire what was happening about this as I was just about to move to a Universal Credit full services area and wanted to get advice, and this seems to have triggered another ESA50 being sent to me.

Again I sent this on time, and have proof it arrived on time. Surprise surprise, the DWP claim it did not arrive. Many phone calls and complaints later, I finally discovered that CHDA claim they received my form 2 days after Royal Mail state it was delivered.

The DWP still insisted my claim form had not been received, until I learnt a little about their systems.

Apparently CHDA use a system called MSRS to feed back info on whether the ESA50 has been received. To further complicate things, it seems MSRS incorrectly displays status unless the telephone operator actually goes further into MSRS to check the actual status as opposed to the status I am guessing is displayed on a front page.

So, if the DWP claim an ESA50 form has not arrived, insisted they look at all entries on MSRS.

Also I had great difficulty in sending my ESA50 using the provided envelope. As it was a freepost address, no post office would allow me to send it recorded/special delivery, or even to provide a receipt proving postage.

I had to make numerous phone calls until I was given a "real" postal address which was a Mail Handling Site. I will not provide the full address as the correct site seems to vary according to region. However if I did not persevere to get a real address, I would not have had any proof my ESA50 had arrived on time, which would have probably meant I would have had to accept DWP's version of events being that my ESA50 had not arrived.