Won esa wrag but now the appeal

Having followed the guides and advice on the forum I recieved my Brown envelope last week and have been awarded the wrag group.

A big thankyou to all on here that have helped me to put the esa50 together.

The time frame for the whole process has been amazingly efficent, I have been under the Croydon office.

First Brown envelopoe early September.
Telephone call from DWP within a week
ESA50 arrived one week later.
ESA50 sent back week 5.
Telephone call with appointment for medical one week later.
Medical appointment six days from phone call.
Result of Medical 4 weeks later.
Telephone by me to jobcenterplus for esa85 which I have now recieved three days later on saturday.

My health problems are asthma and ME/CFS and I am going to appeal for the support group as my ME is on the severe part of the spectrum.

Has anybody been successful arguing the exceptional circumstance category for the support group as I feel that having to attend work focussed interviews etc will cause a relapse of my already limited health.

Secondly I remember but can't find a tribunal ruling about taking consideration of the impact of mulitple health problems could you direct me to it.?

Jan

Insofar as your first question arises, if you are going to argue that the ESA exceptional circumstances apply to your own case, please see this thread HERE.

With regard to your second question there are likely to be a multitude of instructions to appeal tribunals about the impact of multiple health conditions, but you could try:-

Incapacity benefit case law summaries.

Employment and support allowance case law summaries.

Although ESA has replaced IB, it is still possible that some caselaw relating to IB will be pertinent to ESA, which is the reason the first link has been included.

Hi Happyfeet
Glad to hear that you got through the dreaded medical. How were they on severe ME? The reason I ask is that I've had ME (34 years)at the severe end of the spectrum, so I'm curious as to how they handled that.
Cheers, Pen.

Hi Pen

The nurse I saw at ATOS was very well informed on ME/CFS, and I did have my mother with me.The whole assessment lasted about 40mins which for me is a long time I then took most of the week to recover from.

I was asked many of the questions outlined in the guides and I was given lots of time to give a full reply and interestingly she frequently asked me to describe a bad day and how often these were.

Did go through a short phyiscal,involved standing and getting on a bench and showing I could move all my limbs.Only lasted a few minutes and in her report she did correctly record the aches and pains I got.

The whole experience was much better than I feared the stress and worry of it all have certainly set me back but don't know how else I could have managed ias I wouldn't get a home visit.

happyfeet

Hi Happyfeet
Many thanks for your reply, it's very informative. If I wasn't a full time wheelchair user then Croydon is probably the ATOS centre they would send me to. Unfortunately from what I hear their medical examination rooms are on the first floor and not wheelchair accessible. So I'm guessing they'll pack me off to Chatham. Very pleased to hear that you got a nurse who was so well clued up on ME.
Best of luck with your appeal!
Cheers, Pen.

just quick note, my esa50 has just come out of the croydon office as it did last year but last time my atos medical was in Guildford surrey which was a single storey easy access building, jsut though this might help if you could choose an easy access centre.
Right in the middle of filling in my esa 50 renewal, but am going to read the link on complex multiple conditions
hassled mum