ESA Appeal

Hi
I've recently joined this site as I am helping my ex with an appeal for his ESA. Hope I'm posting in the right place. The site is great and I've looked at some of the guides which are really useful.

He was awarded 0 points after his medical assessment although the previous year he was awarded 15 and put in to WRAG (I realise this is not relevant to the appeal as the scoring is done on the day based on the info available at the time of assessment). He has a mix of physical and mental health conditions but the physical symptoms area variable but I don't think the assessor has captured how incapacitated he is on the bad days, despite recording that when he is like this he has to sleep downstairs and crawl to the bathroom. I realise the key is getting them to understand that he is like this the majority of the time, which he is, rather than just occasionally.

He asked for a mandatory reconsideration which of course supported the original decision so still 0 points. We have sent a letter of requesting an appeal using the helpful template/information in the guides and that has now been acknowledged.

Although he already has a copy of the medical assessment, which he asked for after the mandatory reconsideration, unfortunately he didn't keep a copy of the original ESA50. So I was thinking we should write with a Data Subject Access Request to obtain all the documents asap. This seems to be the next step in the guide. Is this what our next step should be in terms of preparing for the appeal?

Many thanks in advance

Hi and Welcome to the forum, you might want to have a look at the following FAQ which explain where everything is

Welcome to Benefits and Work

I'm sorry your ex is going through this, thank goodness he has you to help him!

Now that the appeal has been accepted your ex can be paid the ESA WRAG amount again - as long as he has not used up the 365 days allowed on contributory ESA when not in the Support Group. If he has GP certificates to cover the period, and has not been claiming JSA in the interim, payment will be calculated from the day after the claim was refused.

At some stage the Tribunal Service will send you a 'bundle' of paperwork. This will include everything that DWP has relating to this claim so you should not need to submit a Subject Access Request. You will then be able to formulate your submission.. All correspondence now must be sent to the Tribunal Service, they will make sure that both you and DWP have access to everything that the other party has submitted.

I don't know whether you have found the appeal FAQs yet?

Appeal FAQs


ESA mandatory reconsiderations and appeals


You should Bookmark/Favourite this page in your Internet Browser now.

That way you can return to this topic easily to pose any further queries that you may have by replying to the topic, it helps us enormously if everything relating to the same claim is kept in one place.

See : This Topic also !

Thanks in anticipation of your future co-operation in keeping all your queries relating to this ESA appeal to this topic !

Thanks very much for your reply with all the info. He has been paid a year's worth of contributory ESA already and then was moved on to the non-contributory before it was stopped as a result of his medical assessment which awarded 0 points. He hasn't got GPs certificates but I've suggested he gets them anyway to cover from now on.

I read through the guide on ESA Mandatory Reconsiderations and Appeals and in there it suggests submitting the Subject Access Request to get all the info from DWP before the bundle comes through from the Tribunal Service to help prepare the appeal. What we haven't got is a copy of the ESA50 to refer to so is it worth requesting that or will they definitely send it as part of the bundle?

I can't see anywhere about how long it is roughly between getting the bundle and the appeal hearing? Is there a standard time limit? The link to the Appeals FAQs that you kindly put in your reply doesn't seem to work but maybe that's just a temp problem.
Many thanks again.

Thank you for sorting out the link Gordon.

Thank you for sorting out the link Gordon.