my Hubby who is 61 came off work in 2010 with secondary progressive M S he was in the ESA contributory rate work capacity group for 3 yrs. then after loads of medical board meeting tests forms etc he was moved over 2013 to ESA income related and moved into the support group. Thankfully some person agreed and the pressure stopped.
Since June of this year we have been bombarded with forms all coming from the handling site I get care allowance and can say we always say everything correct send all our documents accounts and hope this will go through probably we have been sanctioned for miss data. this was a lie because the data goes to them every year. we lost our mortgage interest payments because they say my hubby is now in the contributory esa.
Our benefit department don’t take telephone calls you can only deal in writing. writing gets us no were. We have now received the ESA 50 form asking questions about capability to work questionnaire is this a new test us how do we fill in this form in to avoid issues again and is it the right form is any one else having to deal with this run around.
According to our last benefit print out saying how much we will get and so on that came in October 2015 it shows no changes.
This happened to me. One meeting with my local MP sorted the whole thing out. You have no idea how high or quickly they jump when a letter arrives from the House of Commons. Might be worth a try. My MP is Alec Salmond and, as you could probably guess, he is always up for a fight. Anyway, the thing is, it worked and things have been fine since.
thank-you are you in Scotland though I am living in sheffield. barnsley benefits used to deal with us now this wolverhampton handling centre has started to bombard us with forms. we understand its a transition that’s going on.
Our Labour MP passed us on to an under study if thats the correct word to talk to the benefit department. Who say its not them etc. I felt that because he was not jemmied up on benefits when we spoke to him he left me feeling at a total loss.
As you might imagine I am unhappy with sending another form that might get lost or disposed of only to get another sanction.
I received one for me as I get care allowance and as soon as I returned it they said I neglected to give them some documents which I did not. and we are still not getting some of out means tested benefits.
Yes, I am in Scotland but Salmond is an MP in Westminster. Your MP should be representing you in cases like this, that’s what he was elected to do. I suppose we are lucky because Salmond makes a point of dealing with his constituents directly and will always agree to a face to face if you ask for it. Your MP should be the same.
I can’t offer any advice except to say make an appointment with your local Citizens Advice Bureau. Take any paperwork you have collected over the years with you they will sort it all out. They are very good and are used to doing this kind of thing.
thanks everyone I have done 3 different routes and hope one will come back with the best option.
1 Sent an appeal letter to benefits getting board though this is no 3. but dropped it through the job centre plus department trying to be little sneaky hopping they might look at it and redirect it or at east confirm its been received an moved on to the appropriate department.
2 e-mailed M S society help line for a person from advise to contact us for help with this situation.
3 asked our MP Angela Smith to help us find out whats going on.
will let you know the out come suppose it will be well into the new year.
Wading through benefits can be very difficult and it sometimes seems very adversarial. Although you have tried a couple of things I really feel that CAB or Welfare Rights at your local council would be your best bet. The advisors at both these organisations are very familiar with benefits (unlike some of our MPs) and are adept at dealing with the DWP.
I have a couple of thoughts but remember I don’t know your situation in depth -
The fact that you have had another ESA 50 is not sinister or unusual. It is standard these days for reassessment to occur at random intervals, if your husband was last assessed in 2013 it is probably time. If you have never joined before I would recommend the Benefits and work website it costs about £20.00 but they have detail guides to filling in the ESA 50 and it’s well worth the cost.
You mentioned that your husband was placed in the support group on income related but that someone later said he had gone on Contribution based. That would be more or less impossible. Contribution based relies on National Insurance contributions made at work. (Some benefits keep your entitlement going but they don’t improve the situation, just keep it ticking over so to speak) if your contributions run out and you are put on Income related benefits the only way to get back to contribution based is to have another period of work paying NI.
Another thing I would suggest is to photocopy all documents that you send in case they loose them, also registered post. It costs a bit more but when you can say “the letter was signed for by Mrs X” they can’t deny having had it.
I hope that you are able to sort things out but don’t expect to avoid the ESA 50. It’s a necessary evil I’m afraid
Thank-you Wendels for you thoughts and I do feel that we have been in a vortex of lies, sanction, all fitting in with some ones nice reduction in benefit claiming targets.
The confusion started when I got a form asking about my care allowance but noticed it seemed to be driven about pensions.
Then it all started saying we did not send in documents we did. So a new form came for me. this time I went into the benefit department allowed them to take actual copies and let them forward it to benefits.
They then started a new drum we had not told them about hubbies pension/strange because we complied by governing rules about 18 months ago when we passed through the system to get a disability funds towards a wet-room-wider back door for our wheel chairs and a down stairs toile put in. The benefit people came to our home took all our documents including pension. Very strange.
I am feeling so depressed by it all, the pension pays the mortgage and we adapted our pension to pay the mortgage which takes up to being the age of 70 and the benefit department only paid paid the interest bit. we have now had to dig deep to find that bit. We cant sell our home tried that.
The thing I find funny is that media/government with his band of merry men say we are cheating / malingerers but if you notice p the benefit money people get in cash is for food and help with utility bills. All other amounts are pulled back to use against housing/council tax. So who’s cheating who?
My main worry is that the handling centre is miss using their authority to lose or miss place documents and sending this form in for hubby will set another sanction that will just hurt us bad. As you know MS does not fair with stress. And my illness is just the same our CAB is always full it only opens two days. The last time I went to Local CAB the person I saw seemed to be not in the know.
Thanks for your thoughts I have sent a help letter to MS nurse plus Ive asked for a higher MP to come on board.
Hi just to say a big thank-you to everyone who offered some moral support, found loads of stuff including hubbies clark and partners fitting receipt that was for his wheel chairs.
plus our M S nurse specialist has sent us some thing to enclose with his ESA50 form.
Felling more positive about form now don’t feel that I have let my hubby down as his carer.