DLA and ESA renewals

I am seeking opinion about an ESA renewal. I migrated from IB about a year ago. After completing the ESA50, I was placed in the support group without a medical. I wrote to the DWP to ask when I could expect to have to apply for ESA again, but they did not write back.

I had to apply for a renewal of DLA very recently. This was renewed at the same rate as before (HRC), but was made indefinite. I received notice of this two weeks ago. Today a new ESA50 came through the post.

Is there any point in me copying the DLA award notice and attaching it to the new claim for ESA? Shall I use the consultant's report which I sent with the DLA form with the ESA form, as I have no wish to go back to any of my doctors and ask them for yet more letters? Also I am applying for ESA on exactly the same grounds as I did for DLA (ie, that I have an incurable and severe disease which requires a lot of care and attention, day and night with lots of really nasty symptoms all day and all night).

Why oh why oh why are they picking on me? (you don't have to proffer an opinion on that one!).

Thank you.

I am afraid that requent reassessments are the whole ethos of the Welfare Reform Bill and ESA can be reassessed after as little as 3 months!

Send in anything that you think might help, especially if it directly references the Support Group descriptors.

Thank you Mrs Hurtyback. Actually, having read the first few pages of B&W's guide, I realise that I should be in the support group on exemption grounds ie there is medical evidence that the disease is uncontrollable, or uncrontrolled, by a recognised therapeutic procedure etc. I have a letter from the consultant stating that my illness no longer responds to medication (but I still take the medication anyway). I will still fill it all out anyway, and attach that letter too.

Do you know whether a "recognised therapeutic procdure" means a medication approved by NICE for the treatment of a specific condition? Even the very potent and extreme medication I am taking is entirely outside of the scope designed for the disease I have, and I anticipate having to take trial (unapproved) drugs in the near future because nothing which NICE has approved of has worked at all for me.

To my mind, 'recognised therpeutic procedure' would be something that is widely known and used. I don't know whether DWP ha any guidelines regarding this, perhaps one of the other mods will be able to comment.

Thank you again. I hope that someone might come forward regarding the matter of recognised therapeutic procedures. I can tell you that the drugs I take are very rarely used, and are not approved either by NICE or the area health authority for my illness.