Esa

[mikeyboy2010]

Hi everyone, I am new to the forum and I am looking for advice as to my next step should be. I have various mental health issues that meant I was told by an advisor at the jobcentre that I needed to go onto ESA, this was back in either Nov or Dec last year, in feb I had a letter from ATOS telling me to go for a medical assesment and after reading the various horror stories of the assesments I wrote to both ATOS and the DWP asking for information such as the name and medical qualifications of the person who decided that a face to face medical assesment needed to be carried out and also the name and medical qualifications of the HCP carrying out the assesment so that I could check they are suitably qualified to asses my medical conditions with the BMA, I stated that once I had recieved the required information I would consider making an appointment. I had a phone call from ATOS on the day of my assesment and explained that I had written to themselves and the DWP and would not be attending, I was informed I would recieve a did not attend letter I would have to fill in and send back, which I did and once again went over the same issues raised in the first letter.

I heard nothing more until I got another letter from ATOS yesterday asking me to contact them to make an appointment, it seems to me they are totally ignoring my request for some basic information, it seems to me that they are or could be in breach of the freedom of information act and a possible violation of my human rights.

So should I just write to them again demanding the information or seek possible legal advice ??????

Many thanks for taking time out to read this and any advice gladly recieved.

[honeybee13]

Hello there and welcome to CAG.

 

I haven't come across anyone doing this before. I hope you manage to unravel this, but I fear Atos and the DWP are a law unto themselves and they have the whip hand financially of course.

 

Most people on the forum have resigned themselves to attending the assessment, getting no points or well under the 15 they need, having their appeal to the DWP declined and then going to a tribunal, where one would expect them to win. This is what happened to me.

 

I defer to our experts, but would recommend you go carefully. We'll help as much as we can.

[Simon7685]

It seems like a perfectly reasonable request to me, if someone is going to assess whether you are medically fit to work, then then it seems fair game to me that you should expect them to have the necessary qualifications to do so.

 

I haven't read of anyone approaching it from this angle before but I agree with HB that they will just more than likely reduce or even stop your money until you go to the assessment. Having said that I really admire you for taking the stand, as it is only by people doing this that there is any chance of getting a ridiculous process changed.

 

If you are going to be medically assessed then the person making the assessment has to be medicaally qualified, otherwise how can it be a correct assessment.

 

I wish you every success with this and hope that despite the sanctions thay are liable to bring against you, you are able to see it through, it won't be easy.

[ErikaPNP]

As honeybee and Simon have said, failure to attend a medical can result in sanction or termination of your ESA. They can lawfully do this in accordance with the ESA legislation.

 

There should not be an issue in ATOS providing you with the name of the HCP your appointment is to be with, to enable you to check the GMC or NMC registers to ensure they are registered to practice.

 

All HCP's performing assessments for DWP purposes have to be either registered with the GMC or NMC, and be approved by the Secretary of State to DWP.

 

Although ATOS can have assessors working for them whom are not registered with the GMC/NMC (such as an occupational therapist for example) these assessors cannot perform for the purposes of DWP assessments.

[mikeyboy2010]

Hi all and thanks for the welcome to the forum.

Erika I understand what you are saying that they can sanction or terminate my ESA and if that is the case then so be it, my main concern with the appointed HCP is their qualifications and their area of expertise, I for example don't want to be assessed by a midwife or anyone other than someone who is qualified in mental health issues which would result or at least should result in a fair assesment being taken. Once they give me that information I would gladly have the assesment provided the HCP was qualified in the field, this is now a matter of principal for me and I intend to see it out to the end no matter what the outcome.

I am going to call the ESA in the morning to ask why they have not supplied the information requested and will inform you all of the outcome all calls recorded lol.

Thanks for taking the time to read and answer my post

Mike

[antone]

Former ESA processor here. The ESA section at your BDC won't be able to tell you the name and/or professional qualifications of the HCP who would do your medical assessment. They're not being obstructive, they simply don't know and have no easy way to find out.

 

ATOS are the people to speak to about this.

 

Advice if you do call ESA, though: if you've made an FOI request or Subject Access Request, you shouldn't bother hassling the telephony staff. Simply state what it is you need and ask for a callback from the Customer Services team - they're the ones that deal with such things.