ESA Assessment & Re-Assessment Cycle

I have been reading this forum for severa lweeks since I signed up, and am concerned about how the assessment and re-assessment process works in practice for ESA.

I receive Incapacity B, and I completed ESA50 for an end-October deadline. Assuming a medical in December or January; a decision in February [or March?]; and an appeal which could take up to 6 months to be heard, could I have to deal with being assessed/re-assessed all the time without respite - assuming a 12 month review cycle?

If true, should benefit agencies not be lobbying for review cycles to be calculated from when an appeal decision has been reached?

Also, if appeal delays get even more protracted, could people find themselves having to fill in new ESA50 forms before their appeal on the previous assessment has been heard?

Maybe a bit theoretical here, but I would rather know and be prepared for anything as far as DWP & ATOS in concerned.

Many thanks

Hi Augustus, it is very likely to be on a 12 month cycle such as you have described.

It will or rather should, depend somewhat on the prognosis given you. Also on backlog at tribunal etc.

From reading the forum for over a year now, it seems there is little logic, everyone is being treated differently in terms of 'time taken'.

Best wishes,
Rachel

You are right that it would be better for the re-assessment date to be counted from the appeal decision, rather than the initial decision as currently happens. I believe that the scenario you suggest, where someone might be having to apply for renewal whilst still awaiting appeal, has actually occured.

It almost happened to me under the old regime. I had an Appeal granted about 8 weeks before the new forms arrived - and that was when I was on a 3 year cycle.

There are those who claim that the DWP only wait until 3 months after a successful appeal to Tribunal before demanding a fresh claim.

The review cycle is based mainly on the recommended prognosis based on the ATOS HCP's medical report albeit it can be amended by the Decision Maker who makes the final decision on a claim. Hence it is a case specific decision.

The prognosis generally can be from three months, through six months, a year, 'in the longer term', or even in certain specific cases upto four years or so.

Re the review starting from the tribunal date, do remember that the tribunal are not looking at how one is on the day of the tribunal, but how one was on the date the original decision was made.

Thus they must make their decision based on that date, not the Tribunal date.

Pete

pete17971 wrote:

The review cycle is based mainly on the recommended prognosis based on the ATOS HCP's medical report albeit it can be amended by the Decision Maker who makes the final decision on a claim. Hence it is a case specific decision.

The prognosis generally can be from three months, through six months, a year, 'in the longer term', or even in certain specific cases upto four years or so.

Re the review starting from the tribunal date, do remember that the tribunal are not looking at how one is on the day of the tribunal, but how one was on the date the original decision was made.

Thus they must make their decision based on that date, not the Tribunal date.

Pete

I believe that the DWP can trigger a re-assessment at any point if they feel like it - is that correct?

I had heard reports of people who had successfully appealed to a Tribunal and then found that they were facing an unexpectedly early call to be re-assessed.

This may be that people were simply finding that they had been put on a 6-month re-assessment and the Tribunal had taken that long to come around.

There are, however, people who believe that a successful Tribunal hearing can - in itself - trigger another assessment. I even read somewhere that the DWP had this as policy. Naturally, I cannot now find where I read this.

The scenario where the DWP had got the "normal" re-assessment period so short that it came up soon after Tribunal seems very likely to me. If appeals are now taking a standard 6 months +, then obviously someone who is successful at Tribunal in (say)August, might have their ESA back-dated to (say) January and, if they were on a 6-month prognosis, they would be due re-assessment in July. Instant brown envelope time.

But I can see the DWP creating a policy of Tribunal success = brown envelope too.

MOD EDIT : Inappropriate content.

bro58