gp letter on support

I today have payed £10 for a letter from my GP and feel it was a compete waste of money he wrote three lines nothing in depth about my chronic depression and alcohol abuse i will submit it though and hope for the best does anyone know if you can obtain records from phyciatric hospitals as i was in in patient for a year

Feel for you Doris, sounds as though you have been through hell with it. How on earth can you fake a GP report? I bet your GP was astounded with what the dwp dm said.
The thing is they could say that about any consultant letter, or any supporting evdidence at all now. In regards to your comment Rachel I remeber a friend of mine who was turned down wanted to appeal and the GP would not supply a fit note.
It does vary on the doctor though, some are amazing and wwill support all they can while some do not want to know, the benefits advisor said to me last week he wrote to some GP;s and did not get any response to his letters.

You can obtain your records if you write in and ask to look at your notes as all paperwork from the hospital would be on your file. If you are under a psychiatrist it would be free, but if you are not it would cost you, a friend of mine did this, a long time ago now and it took 3 months to access her records. Could you not ask for a report from your psychiatrist, cpn if you have them good luck. I have no idea how long it would take to access your hospital records. it may have changed since my friend asked. If your are under a community mental health team you may have to ask and see what they say

Today went to see gp,he said he has gave me 3 sick certs showing my conditions and gave me copy a hosptial letter saying about my OA in my knee & that i declined a knee replacement in 2010,i do suffer OA in lower spine & mental heath issues,will ask the for a support letter,got to go to hospital in november about my spine so may be lucky for support.

All you can do is try. Good luck with it all.

My GP is supportive in that she thinks I ought to get ESA (transfer from IB).

But when I asked her about a letter she said that atos/dwp write to her anyway (but I know they don't always from what people say here), plus she thinks atos/dwp won't listen to GPs anyway at the first stage. So wanted to save any big guns for appeal. (She's had so many patients turned down for ESA who she thinks should be getting it she;s kind of expecting everybody be turned down.)

I may ask again - I have another appt. with her before my form goes in (to tell her a bit more about things as she is a relatively new GP to me (18mths) & so she's knows more if they do write to her.) She said she would dig out my previous GP practice's notes to get up to date too.

So I dunno. It's obviously very good she's supportive in general but maybe a brief letter from her would be useful at this first stage.