Confused about the reassessment news...

CheshireGuy2016 wrote: Hi.I got 3 years support group in August 2013.CB ESA.Rang DWP today and was told a date that an ESA 50 will be sent out to me 22nd August 2016.So looks like I won't be deffered for two years.

Hi CG2016,

Yes, that would be perfectly feasible, as your original 3 year prognosis meant that your recommended date for reassessment falls after reassessments were reinstated at the beginning of December 2015.

i.e. If you had been given a 2 year prognosis, as your recommended date for reassessment would then have been circa August 2015 before reassessments were reinstated, your reassessment may then have been deferred for another 2 years until August 2017 !!

bro58

It may be just regional (Maximus area in the north), but my husband's reassessment has arrived promptly when due. He was placed in the support group for two years at the beginning of April 2012. He should have been reassessed in 2014, but that's when everyone was deferred for two years because of the backlog. So that means he was due for reassessment in early April 2016. The ESA50 landed at the end of January, which gives them time to process it in time for April.

It was a bit of a shocker as I thought I had a few weeks yet to start working on his ESA50 in advance of the letter arriving (he can't cope with it). However, I'd already got a file of medical evidence I'd been building up, and I used a lot of the information from his last ESA50. I'm glad I was at least partly prepared.

I suggest you download the current ESA50 and start filling it in so you've got plenty of time to work on it and have it ready. I think it helps to feel you're in control.

Also just in case this is helpful to anyone... I have had 3 reassessments over the last 5yrs, and each time the ESA50 form arrived almost exactly 8wks before the date I was told I was due for reassessment.
- So eg this year the date of reassessment was down as 4th April & I received the form on 4th Feb, last time it was due in feb & I received in Dec etc etc (despite what I was told by DWP call centre staff who told me 3 times that it wouldn't come until the reassessment date).

So even if they stick to their planned date to do the actual assessment, they sometimes send the form out early so they can allow 4wks to fill it in & 4wks to consider it before their planned date.
Don't know if that's the same for everyone but I think I have read others saying it too?

Hope that doesn't freak anyone out but to my mind it's better to be prepared.

good luck to all