ESA support group tribunal

My mum has been on sickness benefit following a heart attack at the age of 44 years old, on top of chronic arthritis, hypothyroidism and other medical problems. She was placed in the ESA Support Group when Incapacity Benefit was phased out. However, at her last WCA in November 2016 she was awarded zero points and declared fit for work – not placed in WRAG but simply “fit for work” - all benefits immediately stopped. She will be 64 years old in less than a month from now. Since then she has had no income whatsoever; as she is not fit and able to look for work she cannot legally claim JSA. I started the appeals process on her behalf as she found this too daunting to cope with. I had to chase the DWP hard to even get the Mandatory Reconsideration put through. They admitted they had received the written request for MR within the correct time period, but a month after receipt the DWP had not bothered to submit the request to the MR ‘decision makers’, and it took several weeks more for us to receive their decision (which predictably stated that they were not going to change the original decision). We received copies of the WCA assessment report /’decision makers’ statement of reasons and there were several outright lies immediately apparent (including them saying on the original decision report that they had attempted to contact mum by phone but “there were no numbers on file”, yet on the MR report they said that they had spoken to mum on the phone and discussed things with her, where she said that nothing had changed. In actual fact she does not have a phone – landline or mobile – as she finds speaking on the phone too difficult, which they would have known if they had actually read the ESA50 questionnaire). The WCA report itself contained many lies/deliberate misinterpretations of answers, instances where replies were twisted and chunks of relevant information left out altogether. It took a further 41 weeks to get a tribunal date (Oct 2017). Unfortunately mum was too unwell to attend herself due to angina attacks (which she suffers from daily anyway but had significantly increased frequency at this time), but as I’m her named representative who lives with her I felt able to answer any questions the tribunal panel may have and I attended the tribunal as her representative. However the panel decided not to go ahead, and actually said that they would have adjourned the tribunal anyway as they felt there was not enough medical evidence, and wanted mum to have x-rays and other tests. In other words, they did not believe she was ill and had taken the stance that what the DWP had put in their report was the truth, and it was going to be up to us to prove otherwise. I explained that her consultant had discharged her from follow up as there was nothing more that could be done to help improve her health further. The panel had clearly not looked at the reasons we gave for appealing, which were clearly and concisely laid out on the appeals form point by point; these were not addressed or even acknowledged. Surely even a non-medical person would have to question why, after so many years of qualifying for the Support Group no less with conditions that had no likelihood of improvement, mum had suddenly scored zero points! Based on the level of support that mum has received from GPs in our area (all of whom have been so dismissive and unhelpful that they should be working for the DWP, including one GP who was more interested in the set of golf clubs sat proudly in the middle of the room, and another who said “I haven’t got time for this” when asked to provide supporting info for an ESA50) I am not confident that they will be willing to refer her for the x-rays and tests required to prove her health conditions, and I can’t afford to pay for these privately. It seems that even the tribunal doesn’t care that the WCA assessor had lied or that the DWP has lied. Sorry for the long post, we just seem to have hit a brick wall with this and can’t see any way forward from here.