Will miss my ESA appeal

[panda60]

After waiting over 5 months I got a date for my ESA appeal for 5th July. In that time I arranged to visit my 92 yr old mother in a care home 400 miles away and hubby has booked flights and accommodation. This is the first time I have been well enough to go for over a year. And we go on 5th July!! Wrote and explained and said I haven't seen her for a year and asked for an adjournment, but it was turned down on 'insufficient information'. If I can find the strength to phone on Monday I will ask what they mean and if they need proof, but don't think they will budge.

[Ginsing]

Hi Panda,

Good luck I hope you have enough energy Monday . Seeing your Mother is very important xgins

[panda60 in reply to Ginsing]

Thanks. Sadly she is virtually blind and has dementia so won't know who I am but I want to go to see her and my dad who lives in a retirement flat near my mum and my sisters.

[Lima6MCT]

If you have flights and accommodation paid for have you got any receipts etc for them? I would have thought that you can use those as some sort of proof - may also be useful if care home could confirm that you've been unable to visit for over a year.

[Sammicat15]

Hi Panda, am sorry to read about the intransigence of the tribunal. What Lima has suggested is a good idea. You can prove when the trip was booked and you'll presumably lose money you can ill afford if you don't travel as planned. It would be unreasonable of them to stand fast. They will surely see that your elderly mum must take precedence and that worry is naturally affecting yr health.

See if you can speak to a supervisor. If they do want written proof, you could always visibly "cc" your MP!

[panda60 in reply to Sammicat15]

Yes I might try this. Not looking forward to the journey as I was very unwell the last time when got back. Plane was delayed so was first of all put in a lift, then a minibus to the terminal, then a buggy which went all round the airport and the whole shennagins took longer than the flight!

[Sammicat15]

By the way I hope you've got a wheelchair booked at both ends of yr trip x

Let us know how you get on with the jobsworth you speak to. Good luck!

[marg54]

But what your fighting gor your ESA your playing into there hands by saying your going on a 400 mile journey to see your mam which I would give my right hand to say I could see my mam

Please don't take this the wrong way please but from myself having fibro and chronic fatigue I know exactly what your going through you have filled your form in like I did writting it as it is the constant pain, the days you can't get out of the house when you feel so ill you feel as if your dying the nodding of to sleep without warning and sleeping till afternoon and feeling as if you haven't been to sleep at all

I honestly think if you had gotten your husband tonring on the day of your appeal to say you were too poorly to attend would have been better for you, and you could have got a note off the doctor to say you had been too ill on that day.

I'm sorry if this is not what you wanted to hear but thats what the ESA are looking for peopl3 dropping themselves in it , I'm still waiting of them about my appeal but you have to be so careful ehat you say to them they are paid to get people off esa. Goodluck

[panda60]

May have dropped myself in it but too late to do anything about it now. It's a no win situation with these people !

[electricjaws]

... I hate it when they put things like that,if it is in their eyes "insufficient information" why the hell can't they explain why it is then you can probably give get them the relavent information, it is them that is giving "insufficient info" not you!!

[Sammicat15 in reply to electricjaws]

too right!

[esagestapo]

As long as you have sent your papers to the tribunal, there is no need to attend in person.

[ellablade]

I think they will say there and then If you are fit enough for a 400 mile long trip you are fit for work Sorry but thats exactly whats going to happen I can see them saying it. If I were you I would desperately try to get to the appointment and rearrange your mother. sorry

[panda60 in reply to ellablade]

Can't do that as have paid out for flights etc and my husband has booked time off. My mother will be 92 and I want to be there for her birthday as for all I know it may be her last. I will write again and send a letter from my doctor and will await the outcome.

[rosaann52 in reply to ellablade]

So true.. happened to me.....

[cjw064]

Normally if you provide documental evidence that you have booked flights etc and address a letter to the Judge requesting an adjournment he oe she may consider it.

Regards,

Liam Carter

Senior Case Manager

My Benefit Claim