An unusual phone call from DWP worries me

I have been suffering from clinical depression and anxiety for 20 years. I am on DLA and ESA Support Group. I am registered carer for a friend & neighbour of mine who has paranoid schizophrenia. Three years ago I had a brain haemorrhage.

In late June I was surprised to receive a ESA 50. I sent off the form and then was told I had to go to a face-to-face assessment. I turned up on the day, to be told that the computer system had broken down. I was given another appointment for September 4th. After this, I heard nothing at all until the middle of October.

At this point, I received a message on my landline phone from the DWP. He left no number I could phone back, but said he would do so in the afternoon. He phoned me up and told me that no decision had been made yet. The reason was that 'Basildon Centre' (under which I had been allocated) had been moved over to deal with UC claims, rather than ESA, and so some of the reassessments & claims had been delayed in the transfer. He (he was not a decision maker) told me that the decision would be made on October 17th, and would I like to speak to the decision maker on the phone. I asked when this might be, I was told between 10AM and 2PM. I had an important social appointment on the 17th, and the thought of having to sit at home for maybe four hours, worrying about talking to a decision maker, made my stomach turn. They said they could just send it through the post anyway. The unusual phone call from DWP simply started up the usual anxiety and depression about my benefits all over again. Would I be relegated to WRAG - or worse? Of course, the minute I'd said that a phone conversation with the DM was not a good idea, I immediately regretted it, and wished that I had agreed to it.

That was yesterday. It's almost four months ago that I was sent the ESA 50. Needless to say, this has hardly improved my mental health.

P.S. My friend has a more serious illness than mine, but sometimes he has to support me. He has been in and out of hospital throughout his adult life. He gets roughly the same benefits as me, but I don't think he's ever had his claims reassessed, or even had a face-to-face interview with Atos et al. My mental health is sometimes worsened by having to help him when he is not well. I don't mind this; he's an old friend of mine. But it does show the way that DWP shrug their shoulders about people who 'only' have depression, and put them through the bureaucratic mill year after year.