ATOS appeals: GP's charging £130

[Laird_Scooby]

What topic?

[antone]

What topic?

 

See, there's the problem

[Invalidation]

Going back to the original point.

If I had to pay out that much money for a Doctors letter, and I won the appeal, I would ask the person in charge of the Appeal to award me costs. £130 is no laughing matter

 

It would even be worth a punt in the County Court to recover costs from Atos/DWP.

[osdset]

Going back to the original point.

If I had to pay out that much money for a Doctors letter, and I won the appeal, I would ask the person in charge of the Appeal to award me costs. £130 is no laughing matter

 

It would even be worth a punt in the County Court to recover costs from Atos/DWP.

 

Unfortunately I don't think a tribunal judge is in any position to award costs, they can't even enforce reassessment timescales.

 

The county court idea is worth investigating though.

[45002]

Unfortunately I don't think a tribunal judge is in any position to award costs, they can't even enforce reassessment timescales.

 

The county court idea is worth investigating though.

 

osdset

 

Just encase you not read my reply on your post regarding med 3

 

http://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk/forum/showthread.php?401175-ATOS-appeals-GP-s-charging-%A3130&p=4327755&viewfull=1#post4327755

[**Margaret**]

:Costs?:

 

 

http://www.justice.gov.uk/downloads/tribunals/social-security-and-child-support/forms-and-how-to-appeal/HTA_English_Final_rev.pdf

(pages 7 and 21)

 

A reasonably useful booklet, although their time scales are now way out.

 

And forget the taxi, unless you managed to get one out of Tatos.

 

Margaret.

Edited August 30, 2013 by **Margaret**

[Laird_Scooby]

:Costs?:

 

 

http://www.justice.gov.uk/downloads/tribunals/social-security-and-child-support/forms-and-how-to-appeal/HTA_English_Final_rev.pdf

(page 7)

 

A reasonably useful booklet, although their time scales are now way out.

 

And forget the taxi, unless you managed to get one out of Tatos.

 

Margaret.

 

 

That really confuses me - if you turn up by private car they try and get away with paying something ridiculously low like 12p/mile for your travel expenses (i may be mixing up a Tribunal with another meeting that i claimed travel for) which these days at nearly £7 a gallon of fuel would mean you'd need to get something like 60mpg from your vehicle just to break even.

So in effect you still have to pay your own travel costs, or at least half or more. If you use public transport and/or taxis and have managed to get payment authorised for the taxi, it is reimbursed in its entirity.

 

For someone like me that lives in a rural location with little or no bus service (the bus runs only on a tuesday in a 32 day month ) public transport simply isn't practical but due to my medication i also get travel sick on public transport and couldn't walk as far as the bus stop in any case, this seems grossly unfair.

[45002]

Going back to the original post #1

 

It's nothing new GP's been able to charge for Non NHS work.

 

I noticed in that newspaper article they only point out stories where GP's have been charging.

 

What about the GP's who don't charge !

 

Those charges are agreed by DOH and BMA and not a practise manager.

 

Perhaps the OP would like to comment for once,instead of just copy and paste scare stories all over CAG...

[Nystagmite]

I used to get the same, being passed round from pillar to post by GPs then after some very strange things happened (like being prescribed the wrong pills!) i refused to see certain GPs and then decided to make sure i only saw one GP. If more people insisted on this, there would be less chance of being passed round like a half-eaten pack of stale biscuits at a coffee morning!

Claire - i'm sorry you have difficulty explaining things face to face to the GP, i've had a few things mis-reported myself by my GP when they haven't understood what has been said and it's incredibly frustrating!

 

I can request I see a certain GP and I know when I went to get fit notes last year, they always sent me to the same GP. But sometimes, that means a bit of a wait.

[Laird_Scooby]

It's worth the wait, believe me! Not only do you get what i like to call "consistency of care" but if you go to the DWP with consistent fit/sick notes it's harder for them to argue as you've consistently seen the same GP so they have seen you on various different days. As such they have a better long term idea of how ill you are.

[mr_mastiff]

Laird_Scooby, I agree to a certain extent your comments about consistency of care, However, if you see a number of Doctors its a second opinion every time.

[Laird_Scooby]

Laird_Scooby, I agree to a certain extent your comments about consistency of care, However, if you see a number of Doctors its a second opinion every time.

 

To a degree i agree with that Mr Mastiff, however some GPs have been indoctrinated (pardon the pun!) with the current thinking that anyone disabled/ill is capable of doing at least some work. I concede that on certain days i may be able to do some work, however i would spend the next 3-5 days recovering (even from a driving job which i would find the easiest) and nothing else would get done at home such as housework, not that i do much anyway but if i did none at all i wouldn't be presentable enough to work in any case.

The big drawback about seeing another GP is i or anyone else may be having a slightly better day than average and the "new" GP may only see this and not the "bigger picture" which the normal GP has built up. For example, i need to see my GP at the moment but haven't been well enough to get to see him - things like that aren't taken into account by ATOS and obviously not known about by the GP in the first place. As i pointed out to one GP, i never saw him on my worst days as i simply couldn't get out of the house to get there - this had never crossed his mind before.

[wildm]

Dear God, more pigs with their snouts in the trough............first do no harm eh ha ha

[Laird_Scooby]

Dear God, more pigs with their snouts in the trough............first do no harm eh ha ha

 

 

???????????????????????????????????

[banjo67xxx]

To a degree i agree with that Mr Mastiff, however some GPs have been indoctrinated (pardon the pun!) with the current thinking that anyone disabled/ill is capable of doing at least some work. I concede that on certain days i may be able to do some work, however i would spend the next 3-5 days recovering (even from a driving job which i would find the easiest) and nothing else would get done at home such as housework, not that i do much anyway but if i did none at all i wouldn't be presentable enough to work in any case.

 

Unfortunately, the current system is too black & white. In the eye's of JSA vs. disabilty you can either work or you can't. In reality there are some people who are quite capable of working 20hrs/wk but not ready to do 37.5hrs/wk, or sometimes people can be capable of doing some types of work but not others. How do you judge if they should be working, or claiming disability benefits. For example, I have a friend who suffers from anxiety attacks and he just can't cope with the pressure of an office job despite having trained as an engineering draughtsman, however he is quite capable of doing manual labouring jobs (he sometimes does, but he is forced to do so cash-in-hand by the system). It would probably be very theraputic for him to actually do some manual work and then see if he can progress into a managerial role. However, under the current system he cannot risk doing any manual work, as he would lose his claim.

 

IMHO there should be multiple levels of disability defined, such that someone like my friend can get a manual job on minimum wage, and have it topped up with disability benefit to compensate for his disability to earn the wage of the professional position he is educated for.

 

Now that we Universal Credit, the system should be ready for this sort of change.

[antone]

???????????????????????????????????

 

I think the poster is arguing that doctors are using the misfortunes of others to profit, and in the process breaking their oath to do no harm.

 

Dunno. In a sense you could say that doctors, by their very nature, earn their living from our pain and illness.

[antone]

Unfortunately, the current system is too black & white. In the eye's of JSA vs. disabilty you can either work or you can't. In reality there are some people who are quite capable of working 20hrs/wk but not ready to do 37.5hrs/wk, or sometimes people can be capable of doing some types of work but not others. How do you judge if they should be working, or claiming disability benefits. For example, I have a friend who suffers from anxiety attacks and he just can't cope with the pressure of an office job despite having trained as an engineering draughtsman, however he is quite capable of doing manual labouring jobs (he sometimes does, but he is forced to do so cash-in-hand by the system). It would probably be very theraputic for him to actually do some manual work and then see if he can progress into a managerial role. However, under the current system he cannot risk doing any manual work, as he would lose his claim.

 

IMHO there should be multiple levels of disability defined, such that someone like my friend can get a manual job on minimum wage, and have it topped up with disability benefit to compensate for his disability to earn the wage of the professional position he is educated for.

 

Now that we Universal Credit, the system should be ready for this sort of change.

 

What you describe is available and is known as "Permitted Work" for those on ESA, IB and IS on incapacity grounds. It's not available for JSA claimants.

[Laird_Scooby]

I think the poster is arguing that doctors are using the misfortunes of others to profit, and in the process breaking their oath to do no harm.

 

Dunno. In a sense you could say that doctors, by their very nature, earn their living from our pain and illness.

 

I was wondering who the comment about pigs in troughs was directed at - doctors being allegedly greedy by charging while others don't or the people foced to live on benefits through no fault of their own?

[antone]

I was wondering who the comment about pigs in troughs was directed at - doctors being allegedly greedy by charging while others don't or the people foced to live on benefits through no fault of their own?

 

I think it was directed at doctors rather than claimants, since there was a reference to the Hippocratic Oath.

[badbessie]

Laird_Scooby I do not think that on this forum that the comments were directed to the people living on benefits. There are just too many of us that have been through this process to point a finger at others.

Edited August 29, 2013 by badbessie
spelling

[Laird_Scooby]

Banjo67 - in many ways i agree, however there isn't enough flexibility within the system to take into account people who are ok one minute but not the next because of the nature of their disability/illness.

 

My brief story :

 

In 2005, i was laid off a well paid (£35k pa) maintenance engineers job that i had served an apprenticeship to be able to do. Due to lack of work in that field, i took a job driving buses to maintain at least some sort of income.

February 2006 i had an injury at work due to negligence on my employers part. For many reasons unknown to me this degraded from being a simple injury into extreme permanent pain and disability in my left ankle, leaving me unable to walk very far if at all regardless of pain levels which are generally on about an 8 on the scale of 1-10 commonly used. In certain times pain can hit 12-13 - yes i know that's more than 10 but the criteria is "worst pain you can imagine".

Anyhow, i digress.

As my condition worsened i was told at the Jobcentre (after being laid off the bus driving job) that i shouldn't be on JSA, i should be on ESA so i claimed ESA on Feb 13th 2009. Eventually in mid November, they accepted my claim and gave me some money.

In 2012, they changed the wording very slightly in the rules for eligibility of ESA. I appealed the loss of my ESA and finally had the tribunal in february this year. I was told that although i don't use a wheelchair in normal life, it was reasonable to expect me to use one for work! This is still totally disregarding the constant extreme pain i'm in, the fact i get exhausted very quickly when trying to be mobile and very often can't even walk far enough to be able to get in the car to go anywhere!

In between whiles i had developed Type 2 diabetes, high cholesterol and in october last year started getting extreme, very nasty chest pains. This is in addition tooften passing out with pain if i had been on my feet too long, getting lymphodemia (spelling?) when my left ankle swells due to excessive use which transfer to my right leg so both my legs/feet are badly swollen. I also have eczema which if it flares up during a lymph attack (as it is now) then i quite often get cellulitis as well.

Now i signed back on to JSA back in feb/mar time this year. They weer putting me under so much stress/pressure to find a job i started getting very frequent pains in my chest. Due to this the vet signed me off again and i am now waiting for tests etc to determine a heart problem or not as the case may be. They were arranged for august 5th and then i had a letter saying they were being rescheduled but on friday 2nd, i had a phone call saying that although the appt was back on they had to cancel again and they would write to me with a new appt which i am still waiting for.

Just to add insult to injury (in more ways than one) i also have an incisional hernia from an appendectomy due to the amount of physical strain i put through my right hand side.

Bear in mind that with all the pain i'm in i very often can't sleep and due to the painkillers i'm on and lack of sleep, often oversleep if i do manage to get to sleep or fall asleep through the day.

 

Now on a good day i can concentrate for more than a few minutes but good days are few and far between. I recently did a long car journey for pleasure and spent the next 3-4 days absolutely shattered.

Most people at this point would realise i'm not capable of holding a job down, even if i could get one in the first place.

With so many problems to contend with though, i find it difficult even looking for a job, never mind attending interviews etc!

 

Now after boring you all to tears with my potted life story for the past 7 years, you can probably undersand why i feel doctors should not be allowed to charge anything for supporting evidential letters for the DWP/ATOS etc!

[Laird_Scooby]

Laird_Scooby I do not think that on this forum that the comments were directed to the people living on benefits. There are just too many of us that have been through this process to point a finger at others.

 

 

Thanks for the clarification! Thought that probably was the case but the OP was a little ambiguous IMHO.

[speedfreek]

I think it was directed at doctors rather than claimants, since there was a reference to the Hippocratic Oath.

 

No don't think they meant that

 

hippo, from the ancient Greek for "river horse"

 

So GP/Doctor/Nurses all pledge to save us via an oath to the river horse - no pigs mentioned at all tbf.

[mr_mastiff]

Speedfreek, I was a nurse for twenty odd years and the only oath,s I made were directed at the stupidity of the governments latest Ideas for patient care and the managers ideas for putting them into practice. I have stood on both sides of the fence both as a nurse and a person on benefits and I have not come across one doctor who as acted in the ways described in some of the posts. Perhaps they treat me differently because nurses are the most likely group to take them to court. There may be a few bad Doctors and Nurses but very few!

[banjo67xxx]

Banjo67 - in many ways i agree, however there isn't enough flexibility within the system to take into account people who are ok one minute but not the next because of the nature of their disability/illness.

 

...

 

Now after boring you all to tears with my potted life story for the past 7 years, you can probably undersand why i feel doctors should not be allowed to charge anything for supporting evidential letters for the DWP/ATOS etc!

 

You have my sympathy. Sorry to sidetrack the thread. In cases like yours it should be obvious to the powers that be, that you should be on ESA (not that I know what that is). The point I was making is that there are different degrees of disability, and the system should be more flexible. For some milder cases, I dont think its unreasonable to expect ESA claimants to do some "permitted work", so long as people aren't being forced into something they are clearly unfit to do (The idiots at your tribunal clearly can't be trusted to make such decissions)

 

And getting back on track:

 

Yes, I agree, that in the same way a Doctor can't charge for a sickness certificate, there should be no charge to the patient for supplying evidence to the DWP (but to keep the Doctor happy perhaps they should be allowed to send an invoice to the DWP for their time).