James Purnell, I am 54 and have worked for the past 10 years with Parkinson's disease. I am deliberating whether to leave on early retirement on ill health frounds and may need to apply for ESA in order to have my NI contributions paid for my state pension. If I persuade an independent doctor to allow me to leave on the top tier of ill-health pension (ie that I wil not be able to work again) will that be sufficient to be put into the support group? Or would it be a matter of going through the same kind of scrutiny - which seems to me to be a waste of time and money! What is needed is some kind of smartcard or electronic record which records milestones on a progressive disease which will trigger certain entitlements. There must surely be a smoother way to do some of this!
Asked by alicam on Aug 06 2008 6:48:19 PM and supported by 26 members
MORE!
One of our aims is to try and simplify the benefits system to make it easier both for people to know what they are entitled to and then to access those benefits. We are working towards having a far more personalised system which will fit around you rather than you having to fit round us. In the case of the support group for ESA customers it has been designed for those people who are too sick or ill to work both now and in the foreseeable future.