descriptors for esa.

KD

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I hope this won't disillusion you on your first post.

The first thing to say is that the form and the ESA Descriptors are two separate things, although it is the form that you are using to report your limitations, it is the Descriptors that you will be assessed against, the two are not entirely the same!

Neither use the word "walk", I believe the form says move and the Descriptor, which is the important one, uses the word mobilise. Our ESA Claim guides explain exactly what each Descriptor means;

www.benefitsandwork.co.uk/help-for-claimants/esa

Mobilising encompasses at one end walking and at the other, self-propelling a manual wheelchair over an equivalent distance, whether you use or even own such a wheelchair is not relevant, as long as the usage can be considered reasonable. Reasons why it might not be are that it is impractical for you to use one, for example you live in a flat and there is no lift to transport the chair down to street level, or you cannot physically use one, again as an illustration, you have an upper body injury that would prevent you propelling it or heart or lung problems that make it too strenuous.

I am afraid there is no legal definition of what is reasonable, there are some illustrations above of what is not reasonable in regard the wheelchair but there is nothing as far as I am aware that covers the time taken to walk a particular distance. PIP does define reasonable timescales as being twice what an able bodied person would require, although DLA does not define it specifically the claim form also uses a figure of 2x, so I would use this as a reference point and argue your case, obviously higher factors are better than lower ones and wherever possible you should try and give accurate examples.

I hope this explains it better, but if not please reply to this post and we will do our best to help.

Gordon