Atos Rejection, not sure what to do now?

[kjaye]

Hey guys,

 

I'd really appreciate some advice regarding my recent Atos assessment rejection.

 

Brief backstory. I'm 38 years old, had Hodgkin's Disease in 1999. I survived the cancer and after a bone marrow transplant was put into complete remission. I had extensive treatment however and and my lungs were severely damaged, (just below 50% capacity), my thyroid was damaged, I have fibromyalgia and suffer chronic fatigue and a weakened immunity.

 

I have been signed off work permanently since 1999.

 

For years after I suffered with chronic fatigue, severe depression and social isolation which really restricted me from doing anything.

 

However, fast forward to the past 12 months. I have changed my diet, started gentle exercising, which I have now been able to build up to 4 days a week and I feel that my health and wellbeing have massively increased.

 

My confidence has risen and I've started to feel like I want to get back out and do something with my life again.

 

I have just recently been accepted for volunteer work with my local health authority and was excited that this could be a way to gently get myself back into the experience of working, and if I am able to cope back into paid part time work.

 

I communicated this enthusiastically at the Atos medical as I had heard about the WRAG group and the back to work schemes they are supposed to offer.

 

I told them that I felt well enough to be put onto such a scheme and would love to receive some support and assistance in getting back to work.

 

 

However this week I received a letter telling me I did not meet the criteria for Employment and Support Allowance and that all my benefits are being stopped on October 21st.

 

They regard me as fully fit for work and told me to claim jobseekers allowance.

 

 

I really don't know what to do now. I am actually in agreement with them that I'd like to try and work part time and am taking the steps towards that with volunteer work.

 

Now I feel like I've had the rug pulled out from under me. It sounds like I either have to go onto job seekers and look for full time work, which I absolutely don't feel I am ready to do, or else appeal and get my claim reassessed as unable to work, a criteria which I don't believe is true for me, as I believe I can, and indeed want to work part time.

 

I know I can appeal and will continue to get paid pending a decision, but it seems like I am going to lose about £30 a week regardless, money which I absolutely cannot afford to lose.

 

 

I would really welcome some advice from others in this similar situation, where you feel able to work part time, and indeed welcome the opportunity, but due to severe lung damage, fibromyalgia and fatigue just couldn't cope with supporting myself fully.

 

I have twice previously attempted a computer degree since my cancer diagnosis, and despite doing very well on the course had to give up within a couple months both times due to the accumulated exhaustion.

 

I have only found out about this decision this week and so am in a lot of confusion obviously which is making it worse.

 

The way I had understood it, the WRAG component of the new benefit scheme was specifically geared towards people such as myself so I'm kind of stumped as to why I wasn't put in that group.

 

 

I did explain fully in my interview with Atos that I wanted to try and work and was looking forward to being given support to this end, but that the accumulation of working is likely to cause me serious fatigue and that I need to build up gradually as my weakened immunity is a problem.

 

Maybe I was naive but I genuinely felt the interviewer was on my side and that this was about helping me get back to work, something that I was enthusiastic about, but in fact they have just cut all my benefits completely with no help and support whatsoever. And to find out I will be losing £30 a week from Oct 21 even if I appeal is really troubling to me.

 

 

I don't want to present myself as unable to do anything, and am keen to start this volunteer work and was hoping from there to build myself up to start part time work and see how I am able to cope physically from there.

 

After 13 years of unemployment, and many years of illness and depression I am woefully unequipped to just jump straight back into work and it seems rather cruel to just cut off all my benefits the moment I tell them I am starting to feel better and want help in getting back to work. I just feel this might end up setting me back, rather than helping me in any way.

 

I hope some knowledgable people on here can advise me as to my next steps.

[SWLABR9]

In my view the so-called welfare reforms have nothing to do with getting anyone back to work but instead are to do with replacing the welfare state with a paid insurance model, opening up a multi-billion pound market for the insurance companies like, say, Unum, who have been working with the DWP as consultants through several governments. I don't believe you should worry about being declared fit to work having much to do with what you said, they'd probably have pronounced you fit to work even if you'd been on the verge of death. They work to quotas at Atos, this was exposed by the recent Dispatches and Panorama shows about the WCA, so it's got nothing to do really with how ill you are or aren't. Anyway you have to appeal, ask the DWP for the appeal form and also tell them you want a reconsideration of the decision and further you want to be paid at the ESA assessment rate pending your appeal. You should also ask for a statement of reasons, ie why they failed you. That'll give you somethihng to go on at your tribunal.

[osdset]

Unfortunately you are the ATOS HCP's dream claimant, you have done virtually all their work for them, it's a shame that you did not do some research on this forum because if you had you would have realised that there is no practical help out there for anyone who is claiming ESA and want's to return to work.

 

ATOS are definitely not on your side and their agenda is to find you fit for work at all costs.

 

Rant over, now for some practical advice. Appeal the decision, get form GL24, fill it out and get it sent off to your BDC (the address will be on the correspondence from the DWP) you have one month to lodge an appeal, once the form is received you will continue to receive the assessment rate until the appeal is heard, you may well wait months for the appeal hearing as there is a backlog, use the time to gather all and any medical evidence in support of your appeal. In the meantime continue to post on this forum there are plenty of people on here that have been through the WCA, and appeal process who will be only too willing to assist.

 

You can download the GL24 here http://www.direct.gov.uk/en/Diol1/DoItOnline/DG_4017514

Or get a copy from your local JCP.

Edited September 26, 2012 by osdset

[bigissue]

I am sorry this has happened to you, you made the mistake of approching the ESA process as a decent reasonable human being, unfortunately it just doesnt work that way. If you want to qualify for ESA at all its advisable to never mention your good days or what you can do anything positive you say at all will be used against you. I myself have a varying condition with good days and bad days, I was advised by a local welfare group not to be drawn at all on my "good days" during the medical but instead to only refer to my bad days. This should not be what you have to do, if the assesments were fair, reasonable then a person could be totally open as you were but they are designed to take the benefit off you. So much assumption and conjecture is used on the part of the HCP conducting the assesment so that if you say you watch TV they take it to mean you can sit for long periods without pain, or if you have a pet they say you take care of all it's needs all meaning your able to go back to work.

 

They do it because there are targets as has been said, if they don't take enough people off ESA they get investigated themselves. Sadly you treated the assesor as a decent person who was trying to help you but you were deceived. In a fairer system a person like yourself being open and honest would have been placed into a supportive wrag group where you would have had help over the next year or so to find you way back into some kind of employment after suffering for many years in the aftermath of a devestating illness. Instead they just turf you out on JSA which is unacceptable. I hope you do decide to appeal and go to your local citizens advice or welfare support for help as I believe that even on principle that ATOS and this government should not be allowed to gat away with this sort of thing.

 

Good luck.

[kjaye]

Thanks for the replies guys. I have spoke to my citizens advice today over the phone and they have advised me that I should definitely appeal. Yes, it does seem like I went into this interview in a bit of a gullible state, but I was feeling really posiitve at the time having just had an interview for a volunteer position and feeling physically well for the first time in a long time. I told the interviewer that I had started exercising and eating healthily, that I had joined a chess club and was about to start to volunteer and that my goal was definitely to try and build up tp paid work.

 

I did a little reading before and thought that peple were complaining about being put into the WRAG group, which actually was what I wanted to be put into as I thought help with getting back to work would be awesome, but it seems that the whole thing is a bit of a sham.

 

Still, there is no point moping about it or letting it get me down. I will appeal, as I think it's totally unreasonable to expect someone with my health conditions, after 13 years unemployment to just go and find a job on 3 weeks notice but I won't let it derail the progress I am making. Seeing citizens advice tomorrow to begin the appeal, now I know there is support out there I feel much better.

[estellyn]

Thanks for the replies guys. I have spoke to my citizens advice today over the phone and they have advised me that I should definitely appeal. Yes, it does seem like I went into this interview in a bit of a gullible state, but I was feeling really posiitve at the time having just had an interview for a volunteer position and feeling physically well for the first time in a long time. I told the interviewer that I had started exercising and eating healthily, that I had joined a chess club and was about to start to volunteer and that my goal was definitely to try and build up tp paid work.

 

I did a little reading before and thought that peple were complaining about being put into the WRAG group, which actually was what I wanted to be put into as I thought help with getting back to work would be awesome, but it seems that the whole thing is a bit of a sham.

 

Still, there is no point moping about it or letting it get me down. I will appeal, as I think it's totally unreasonable to expect someone with my health conditions, after 13 years unemployment to just go and find a job on 3 weeks notice but I won't let it derail the progress I am making. Seeing citizens advice tomorrow to begin the appeal, now I know there is support out there I feel much better.

 

Though its after the fact, read this sticky about the assessment and it will probably become clear how the things work.

 

http://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk/forum/showthread.php?287253-esa-medicals

[osdset]

Thanks for the replies guys. I have spoke to my citizens advice today over the phone and they have advised me that I should definitely appeal. Yes, it does seem like I went into this interview in a bit of a gullible state, but I was feeling really posiitve at the time having just had an interview for a volunteer position and feeling physically well for the first time in a long time. I told the interviewer that I had started exercising and eating healthily, that I had joined a chess club and was about to start to volunteer and that my goal was definitely to try and build up tp paid work.

And that's what is so insidious about the WCA, people like you go into it with honest intent thinking that you will get a fair deal, after all you fit the government's role model, someone that has overcome significant health problems and now want's to engage in the workplace, you would imagine that the DWP would be falling over themselves to assist. Your story just goes to prove that the government's agenda is benefit denial, full stop.

[debt4get]

 

I did a little reading before and thought that peple were complaining about being put into the WRAG group, which actually was what I wanted to be put into as I thought help with getting back to work would be awesome, but it seems that the whole thing is a bit of a sham.

.

people are dying to trying to get in to the WRAG group and i mean that literally....the only 'help' you will get with getting back to work is to farmed out to w2w providers, who will push and bully you into totally unsuitable jobs, will make your life a nightmare, and the only person to benefit will be them...i suggest you have a good read around the forums and the 'horror stories' that abound here on the forum...unfortunately you will take a drop in income, as the assessment rate for ESA is the same as JSA but without having to jumps through the hoops in order to claim it, i dont know if you have a partner, but it came as a great shock to me to find after i failed, because my partner has a small income i was entitled to s*d all, though they did eventually give me ESA contribution assessment rate which is only paid for 365 days..after that i get nothing!!! rant over

[debt4get]

also dont forget in order to get ESA assessment rate you are going to have to visit your doctor and get what is called a 'fit note' this used to be the old 'sick note' you need to get it from the date that your money was stopped from, otherwise you will have a gap in payments....i rang the dwp told them i wanted to appeal and asked them to send the GL24 and the ATOS report...also told them on phone i wanted to claim esa assessment rate...they WILL NOT reinstate until they receive the 'fit note'