FAILED ESA TRIBUNAL- NOW WHAT?

Hi

It's been a year with all the ESA struggle and i had my first tier tribunal earlier this year only to be awarded more points compared to the nil i got at the medical but even still i failed my ESA. I'm living off savings and am not taking any benefits, still not 100% well to return to work. Just wanted advice on what to do next! Shall i re-apply for ESA? Do i have to go through the whole thing again? Forms, Medicals, tribunal etc?

Also, have the ESA handbooks been updated? They were extremely useful,as is this whole site and i would highly recommend this site to everyone strugging with the benefits system.

Thank you to all at Benefits and Work

Simple wrote:

Hi

It's been a year with all the ESA struggle and i had my first tier tribunal earlier this year only to be awarded more points compared to the nil i got at the medical but even still i failed my ESA. I'm living off savings and am not taking any benefits, still not 100% well to return to work. Just wanted advice on what to do next! Shall i re-apply for ESA? Do i have to go through the whole thing again? Forms, Medicals, tribunal etc?

Also, have the ESA handbooks been updated? They were extremely useful,as is this whole site and i would highly recommend this site to everyone strugging with the benefits system.

Thank you to all at Benefits and Work

An appeal could be made to the Upper Tribunal, but there are strict time limits and depending on the date of your tribunal hearing, you may well be out of time.

The time limit can only be extended if there are special circumstances as to why you did not appeal in time. Details can be obtained from The Tribunals Service. It would also be advisable for you to submit another claim for ESA if you wish to consider an appeal to the UT, particularly if your condition has worsened. If however, less than six months has elapsed since the original decision disallowing your ESA claim, the DWP may disallow your renewed ESA claim until the 26 weeks have expired, unless your condition has deteriorated or you have a new medical condition.

Unfortunately, you will have to go through the whole ESA process again. You can check in the "help for claimants" section to see if the ESA handbook has been updated?

Assistance and advice may be available for an appeal to the UT from the Community Legal Service.

Thanks for this info.

I don't have the energy to go through the ESA system again! I think i might just get on to JSA but with limited capability to work if that's possible?

Just some thoughts...

If you sign on for JSA, you're supposed to take active steps to find work. In practice, you may well find that three work-hunting activities a week will suffice. Since JC+ staff are overworked, you may well be in with a chance that they won't even notice what sort of jobs you are applying for and whether they are full or part-time or whatever. In fact, it seems that there are JC+ staff out there pushing people that need full-time work to go for anything they can find, including part-time and zero-hours contract work.

So regardless of whether you're officially allowed to make yourself available for only part time work or only particular sorts of work, you may well find that you won't be hassled over your choice of what work to apply for so long as you're bunging in lots of good job applications.