JC+ letter

The letter I recieved from JC+ states that as I meet the threshold I will continue to recieve IB. I will recieve a further Q/aire to ensure that I still meet the requirements of the PCA at some future date. A normal review is due 15/03/2011. I am told that I may be sent another Q/aire and asked to attend another medical after this date. Please can someone clarify if at all possible I should expect - an IB50 before 15/03/2011 and /or an ESA after 15/03/2011. Thank you

anne wrote:

The letter I recieved from JC+ states that as I meet the threshold I will continue to recieve IB. I will recieve a further Q/aire to ensure that I still meet the requirements of the PCA at some future date. A normal review is due 15/03/2011. I am told that I may be sent another Q/aire and asked to attend another medical after this date. Please can someone clarify if at all possible I should expect - an IB50 before 15/03/2011 and /or an ESA after 15/03/2011. Thank you

You will receive an ESA50 as the review date is after the commencement of the wholesale migration date, which is February 2011 following the trial period starting in October 2010.

Hi Crazy Diamond,

I would have PM'd you about your reply but I can't in this forum.8-((

How can you be sure that the questioner will be put through an ESA rather than an IB medical?

I agree that the trial period will be over and the migration started but surely they cannot migrate everyone at once, I believe that 10,00 a week was the quoted figure.

Do we have definitive proof that an IB medical will automatically become an ESA medical when the migration starts.

I posed this question in the discussion forum but haven't as yet had a clear reply.

I assume that the DWP has a plan as to who and when claimants will be migrated but so far I haven't seen a idea of how that plan will work.

I am personally very interested in this answer as I am due for another medical around March 2011 as I am currently on IB and hopefully will have only an IB medical, fingers crossed.8-))

By then I will be 62, so another easier medical will bring me that much closer to retirement.

Zuxo

Hi Zuxo,

Without reading through the regs I couldn't say whether the DWP are obliged to only carry out ESA medicals on IB claimants once the pilot phase is over or whether they simply have the power to carry them out.

But it's difficult to imagine a scenario in which the DWP would want to continue carring out IB medicals. Every hour a health professional spent carrying out IB medicals would be an hour that could have been spent converting claimants to ESA.

It would aslo mean continuing to maintain software and decsion making and appeals systems for incapacity benefit and ESA instead of just for ESA.

So while most people are sceptical about whether the 10,000 a week target can be met, even with a new simplified ESA medical, it seems very unlikely that any IB medicals will be carried out once conversion begins.

Steve