Benefits

Hi Nanaclaire, did this letter come out of the blue or did it follow a consultation with yourself and a doctor?

I fail to see how a civil servant at the dept of Health could have made this decision :? That will be very worrying for many people.

Sounds like a letter from Dept of Work & Pensions (DWP) (there is no Department of Benefits, although there is a Benefits Agency(BA)) regarding a wage replacement benefit based on ill health / disability - either Incapacity Benefit or Employment & Support Allowance (ESA).

Many people are finding that recent medicals are leading to loss of benefits. The advice is always to seek advice from a benefits advisor eg CAB (Citizens Advice Bureau), local council service, disability rights body etc. Success rate at appeal tribunals is higher if you attend in person than if you ask for a hearing on the papers, and higher if you are represented by an advisor, although some don't attend any tribunals, but taking a written submission can help.

In addition, worth mentioning that if you are also on Disability Living Allowance (DLA), DWP may use the medical examination to look at your DLA award as well.

They are just telling everyone they are fit to work to get the benefits bill down. How can you be deemed to ill to work for so long and now be deemed fit to work? Its stupid, they are forcing sick people back to work and I hope these people will sue if their health goes downhill as a result.

If this is an ATOS assessment for ESA you are talking about Nanaclaire, then nothing surprises me.

This government (and the previous one which actually started the ball rolling)say they want to get people off benefits and imply that most are not genuine cases. Of course we know that there are many who are not genuine but in the backlash, sick and disabled people are being targetted as well..all the government cares about are their employment figures.

One thing I would advise you to do apart from getting in touch with your law centre is to phone DWP, tell then you intend to appeal their decision (make sure you do this in writing too, really important) and request a copy of the medical finding from the ATOS doctor. They may try and put you off but insist, it is your right to see what has been written about you and how they came to their conclusion.

I had to do this for my daughter two years ago-we won our case but I had to go through it on my own-our CAB was useless, the worker didn't even know what ESA was.
I went to hell and back but it can be done-just don't lose hope.