wca telephone assessment

[mattattack444]

hi everyone, i have a question about wca assessments, I'm claiming UC and currently have been getting the lcwra side of it for about 2 years because of a severe panic disorder I have stemming from claustrophobia , all has been well so far with talking to people at the dwp offices at whatnot but i received a call 2 days ago setting me up for a telephone assessment for tomorrow (13/01/2021) however my am panicking like mad about it and already had 3 panic attacks since and its making me feel broken about it as I don't do well on the phone at the best of times and just want to know what I'm likely to expect. I am so worried about it all and think I'm going to mess it up because of the way i am on phones. thanks anyone who is listening.

[Izzy9010]

Hello there,

I had my telephone assessment towards the end of December. I was worried about it too but it wasn’t as bad I thought it would be. It lasted about 25 minutes and the lady basically went through my ES50 form and asked me what I can I can’t do with regards to washing myself, getting dressed up, cooking a meal etc. She also asked me about my medicines and the side effects they cause. The lady I spoke to was pretty nice and the question were straight forward.

Just have the form you filled in with you and u should be fine. Good luck!!

[mattattack444]

Hello there,

I had my telephone assessment towards the end of December. I was worried about it too but it wasn’t as bad I thought it would be. It lasted about 25 minutes and the lady basically went through my ES50 form and asked me what I can I can’t do with regards to washing myself, getting dressed up, cooking a meal etc. She also asked me about my medicines and the side effects they cause. The lady I spoke to was pretty nice and the question were straight forward.

Just have the form you filled in with you and u should be fine. Good luck!!

ok doesnt sound like the worst thanks, i dont have a copy of the form i filled in unfortunately so im worried i wont know what to say since my memory is awful nowadays. ive started to write somethings down that i can talk about and also im a bit wary because ive not been able to go to the doctors for the past years nearly because of the restrictions but i have had mutilple phone calls with them and obviously have all my medication on hand. thanks for the reply.

[Millicent1234]

I also have a panic disorder and I had my telephone assessment back in July, it wasn't easy but it wasn't horrible. The person I got was nice, though I was keen to finish so kinda rushed through the questions. Don't worry if some of your replies don't match your assessment form, things do change. I would suggest, if you're making notes, look at how your issues aren't allowing you to work. Some people have panic attacks and can work, but that isn't you (or me) and it's good to explain the difference, no matter how embarrassing or awkward. Also remember they can't kick you off ESA lcwra without a face to face, so you can't 'mess up', so hopefully that takes away some of the stress.

Might also help to make notes during the assessment. After mine, I asked for information from my form and from the assessment itself. It's free but it's handy to have a record and I found the assessor had made a few things up that we hadn't discussed, which was disappointing but not unexpected.

[mattattack444]

this is great to hear, glad to know i cant get kick off because of the call. my panic attacks are to a degree where they happen for no reason or seemingly no reason, ive kept a diary for the past few years to see if i can spot triggers but nothing seems to point to anything specific. also when the attacks happen the portion of it where you feel out of your body is really scary for me and it tends to make me do "stupid" things like a few months back i jumped out of my dads car while we were moving because i had a panic attack in the car and i felt entombed it was awful. luckily we were only just pulling away from traffic lights but its super embarrassing to the point where i just dont go out the house anymore because it hate the thought of having an episode and people seeing me. it all started with claustrophobia that triggered from an mri scan i had and from then on its spiralled even though ive tried cbt a couple of times and done other things.... sorry realised this went on too long lol. thank you for the reply anyway hopefully when its all done i can relax.

[nukecad]

they can't kick you off ESA lcwra without a face to face

I'm sorry to report that is not strictly true, but shouldn't be anything to worry about.

They can't find you Fit-for-Work, at the moment the DWP are not making any FFW decisions at all.

They also shouldn't reduce LCWRA to LCW following a telephone only re-assessment. (Because it's not a full re-assessment).
Telephone assessments were intended to say either LCWRA-Yes or LCWRA-No for new claims and changes of circumstances, to make sure that new claims and CofC's that deserved LCWRA got it.
The assessors are not evaluating for LCW at all. (They are not doing any points scoring at all).

But because telephone assessments were never realy intended for re-assessments that leaves a slight loophole where the Decision Maker can reduce an existing LCWRA award to LCW following a telephone reassessment that says LCWRA-No.
They shouldn't do that and that was never intended to happen.
If it does happen it should be easy to challenge as the claimant has not been reassessed for LCW, and so the DM is acting without HCP advice by making an award of LCW.

Unfortunately we have already seen it happen to one member here, who is now challenging it.
(That case is a bit strange, the DWP seem to know that it shouldn't have happened but there is no process to do anything about it until challenged by the claimant).

[mattattack444]

i see, thank you for the clarification, i imagine as my missus keeps saying that i am over thinking it all and it shall probably be cut and dry with me talking about what my daily life is like etc but my anxiety takes things to astronomical levels. i cant see a reason they would say no to me considering my current condition is worse than when i filled out the form but not having medical evidence because of covid making it near impossible to see the doc might be a bad sign, i have only got my medicine and the phone calls i have made to the doctor over the past year. thanks again for your reply. this community is nice and helpful

[nukecad]

Yes, there's probably not going to be any problem, but we all know how anxiety can build up if you start to overthink things.

Don't worry about getting medical evidence, they know it's a problem with Covid and so the telephone assessors have special guidance.

[Pau]

Am I right in thinking they are not doing any telephone reassessments for anyone with MH issues during covid ? Or has that changed ? I’m sure I read somewhere on this forum a few months back .

[mattattack444]

not too sure, im quite new to all this. i have MH issues and was booked in for a assessment to day but they called 5 mins before and cancelled due to one of the workers testing positive for covid so she said it will be a minimum 10 days until they get back to me with a new date. honestly they have changed the date and time 4 times now and routine upsets really spike my panic disorder i dont know why. hope i can get this sorted soon