Unfair treatment due to errors.

I feel like my daughter has been treated very unfairly in our latest encounter with the ESA system.

She was placed in the support group back in 2015. No face to face interview, just the ESA50 which the CAB assisted her with. Since then the odd letter, including a ‘change in circumstances’ when she changed her address.

On the 6th she received a text message from the DWP reminding her to attend her WCA on the 8th.
This was the first she knew of any assessment. She phoned the assessment centre who confirmed the message was correct. In the course of the conversation about why she had received no forms or appointment letters it transpired that they had been writing to her at the wrong address. One she has never lived at.
All the assessment centre would say was that address came from the DWP, speak to them.

The next day she spoke to the ESA helpline. There were two addresses within her files, one correct one incorrect.. She was told that there was a record of mail being returned marked ‘not at this address’ from July last year. The person on the phone could not understand why her benifits had not be stopped at that point.
She involved a supervisor, who was to contact the assessment centre about the lack of notice and address issue, and then contact my daugher.
The supervisor phone back that afternoon. Told my daughter a new appointment would be sent out for the next 2-3 weeks. My daughter asked about the ESA50 forms and was told it was too late, they would not be processed by the appointment. The nature of her mental health problem meant they did not need to forms to carry out a face to face assessment.

On the 9th we received an appointment for around the 18th. I could not take her to the appointment so phoned to rebook. Was told that we had already had our 1 rebooking, but we could rebook for an earlier date. So we are to go on Saturday. The person we spoke to about the appointment said there was no evidence of a conversation with the DWP about her appointment. My daughter did not rebook the first appointment so who did?

I have a couple of issue with the saga, but I’m not sure how to proceed.
-Data protection. They knew they had the wrong address back in the July. They did nothing to correct this situation and continued to send letters to the wrong address.
-The text message out of the blue, the lack of time to prepare herself etc have caused my daughter considerable distress.
- I don’t feel she has been given equal opportunity to fill those forms in or gather evidence due to a DWP error. She hasn’t seen a doctor in a year, due to her mental health problems.

I’ve since found out we can download the forms and take them with us. I’m not sure if we should do this or not.

I just don’t know how to proceed with all of this. I don’t want to prejudice anything against her by making a complaint.

Thank you Gordon for taking the time to read all of that.
I will follow up on your suggestions.