Hello Forum Members, I do hope you can offer me some advice on an upcoming welfare meeting. I understand the welfare meeting can result in continued support or agreement to dismissal In May last year, I collapsed at work following a heart attack (I'm only 28) and I'm unfit to work at the moment and in reciept of ESA (Support Element) as I'm undergoing extensive treatment/investigation. I'm due to have surgery and a pacemaker fitted in July and have been told I would be good to return to work by November time. However, I realise the company have been paying me sick pay, holiday pay and covering my role etc and cannpt expect to continue 'supporting' me and I need to focus on getting better/back to work I am very weak and unsteady at the moment and they have offered to do the meeting via conference call. I am wondering if I should go in person as a gesture or whether it would be silly of me to turn this down? Secondly, the Occupational Health have recommended the potential of ill health retirement which financially would be supportive but I'm concerned about the effect on me in a future career having that on my CV/reference as I don't want to be on ESA for life. Occ Health have also told the company I am covered by the DDA which I'm unsure if complicates anything? The business I'm in that I doesn't have a union relationship and I'm not in a Union myself though I am member of Mind Appreciate any view/advice

The truth for a lot of people on ESA with varying conditions is that they could probably do some work, if of course the had the freedom to wake up and say yes today is a good day so I can go in to work, always knowing that they could leave if they fell ill, have all the appropriate adjustments made and so on. However it doesn't work like that attacks are too unpredictable to to commit to a regular work schedule and most employers won't touch people with even fairly mild but ongoing health issues if they get wind of them. So basically it is possible that many are found fit to do some kind of work, with no real prospect of actually getting a job or if they do get one of keeping it. So does ESA cover people like this who possibly could do some work but are not likely to ever get work? To me this is a massive flaw in the system, it is difficult though. While at my recent WCA I overheard two men talking saying that they had to be on ESA because long term drug use and criminal records meant that they would never be able to find work in a sense they had a point as I can't imagine they would be very attractive to most employers (pls note this is not my personal view I feel everyone deserves a second chance). I would imagine that having an illness which isn't your fault which prevents you from getting work should make someone eligiable. However I get the impression that with ESA it isn't like that. Even if you are seriously debilitated with a varying condition half of the month and that the illness is unpredictable that under ESA that doesn't matter, if you have say 15 good or ok days then you should be doing at least some work, that is enough to refuse you ESA. ATOS don't care how impossible it is for you to actually find work, the JCP or work programme can worry about that (many will go on indefinate unpaid work placements no doubt). Am I right about this or does ESA offer assistance to those who have a condition that effectively makes them so unattractive to employers they are unlikely ever to find a job?