Esa form help please

Hayley

Welcome to the forum.

There are two aspects to the Mobilising activity for ESA, your ability to walk and your ability to self-propel a manual wheelchair.

It sounds like you should be able to explain your inability to walk with little problem but you also need to deal with the issue of the manual wheelchair, just because you use an electric chair will not excuse you from this test.

Reasons for being unable to use a manual chair break down into three categories;

First you may have problems with your hands, elbows, shoulders or upper back which would mean that you could not physical propel a manual chair.

Secondly you might have breathing or heart problems which would severely limit the distance that you could self-propel.

Lastly there may be practical issues; these could be physical such as being unable to transfer into or our of the chair or logistical such as storage of a chair, ability to make use of a chair outside although these latter issues have been weakened by case law.

As to your eating, there are two ESA activities that cover Conveying Food or Drink to the Mouth and Chewing or Swallowing Food or Drink.

Both of these are more concerned with the physical activities of eating and drinking and so do not directly deal with the your using a feeding tube, so you need to explain what limitations require you to use the tube in the first place rather than just concentrating on the tube itself.

Gordon