Assessment 11 Months after submitting ESA50

I have been called in for a medical by Atos, eleven months after sending off my ESA50. During that time my medications and conditions have changed and I have new diagnoses in addition to the problems I had a year ago.

Also they have ignored completely my request to be assessed at a specific centre, because I cannot travel alone and need someone to drive me right to the centre and to accompany me to the actual assessment.

My requested centre is completely on ground level whereas; the centre to which they are sending me is mostly upstairs, even though I stated on the ESA50 that stairs could prove dangerous to me.

There is also no mention of my request to have the assessment recorded.

I am concerned that if I try and make further efforts to get the assessment recorded, or if I attempt to change the assessment centre to the one I requested on my ESA50, that this will count as my one re-arrangement.

I am most unwilling to give up my single chance to alter their arrangement, as I am often too ill to even get out of bed, and therefore, a change of appointment is always liable to be needed.

Another crucial factor that is making me feel that I must accept the centre that I have been given is that the person who will accompany me during my ‘medical’ has a month’s holiday booked for just five days after the date that I have been given. I fear that, should ATOS be prepared to offer me the centre that I requested on my ESA50, and hopefully also arrange for recording, I nevertheless doubt that they will also be willing to accommodate my companion’s unavailable dates.

To sum up, my questions are:
1) Is it acceptable for ATOS to call me in to a Face to face assessment using an ESA50 which was filled in almost a year ago?

2) Is it acceptable for ATOS to ignore information which I supplied on my ESA50, where I clearly requested, and explained my reasons for my assessment to take place at the centre that I had previously attended?

3) Is it acceptable for them to not even refer to my request for the assessment to be recorded?

4) Will any attempt by myself to have the assessment take place at my chosen centre, and/or to have it recorded be classed as using up my one allowed rearrangement?

5) Should questions 3 & 4 not be deemed to use up my one rearrangement, should ATOS be prepared to accommodate my companion’s four week holiday?

6) When I do attend my assessment, how should I present my new additional medical Diagnoses, medications and side effects to the assessor?

7) Must the assessor have my ESA50, complete with the, over forty pages of written evidence that I included with it, available at the assessment? I ask this as I have some reason to believe that some, if not all of this has been lost.

Sorry about the length of this but, I am very worried, and really do not know what to do.


Thanks, George.

Thanks Gordon,

I think I will write to them and see if they will re-arrange, as also the day before the assessment I am being fitted with equipment that is meant to monitor one of my conditions over a four day period. Having to go to ATOS the very next day will almost certainly affect this. I will inform them that if it will result in my one re-arrangement being used then I’d rather attempt to attend the appointment they have given me, rather than risk problems in the future.

George

Hello again,

I think I will follow your advice Gordon, and send my New Evidence to the Decision Maker, plus a copy of my year old ESA50 and forty pages of attachments, in case ATOS has lost some of it.

Could you please let me know as to how I can obtain my Decision Maker’s Contact Details?

Many thanks,
George

Many thanks Gordon.

George