Hi,

Recently I won an Incapacity Benefit appeal on the basis of exceptional circumstances. This is when the tribunal feels that the client has a severe and life threatening condition that is not responding to treatment.

The tribunal did not even ask any questions due to us presenting a letter from a professor confirming the nature of the illness and stating that the client was unfit for work.

However, a week letter the client was sent an IB50 questionnaire to complete. This is due to the tribunal making the decision on how ill the client was six months previously. Apparently, it is standard practice to carry out another review six months later from the decision, when there has been a successful appeal.

I know the DWP can perform a review and I can enclose the previous medical evidence but just the fact that the client is having his claim reviewed is causing him stress. In light of the overwhelming evidence that the client is not fit for work and that his condition is not going to improve, is there anything I can do to avoid the review process?

Thanks

My reaction to this is that the mere fact that someone's life-threatening disease has so far not been controlled by medical treatment will not in every case mean that it may not become so in future. The test is not only that it is uncontrolled, it is that it is either uncontrollable or that there is a good reason why it has not yet been controlled if it is theoretically controllable. If there is any suggestion in the evidence that a new approach might be tried in the near future, then it is not altogether unreasonable to see if it is working. However if there is unambiguous medical evidence that the condition is not only at present uncontrolled, but there is no reasonable prospect of it becoming controlled in any reasonably foreseeable future, then it does seem unreasonable to reassess him. How do you stop it? I think only that very unambiguous evidence that it is unlikely to be controllable by any reasonable method will do it. Someitmes it is just finding the medication that works for this aptient, as everyone is different.

Thanks for your help.

The client's condition is not responding to conventional treatments. However, he wants to undergo experimental therapy but his health trust is refusing to pay for this at present. The client is currently fighting this decision. Evidence of this was supplied to the tribunial.

I am not saying that the client should never have his claim reviewed. I just feel that under the cirumstances, that to only wait six months after the date that the condition was judged is unfair.

My gut reaction is that if conventioanl medication has not succeeded in controlling it and there is no reasonable prospect in the near future of anything else, then it doesn't sound reasonable. A tribunal may very well warn off the DWP against reviewing too soon, but there is no guarantee they'll take a blind bit of notice!