Sick note reminders with the wrong dates on

I am not sure how often this happens but I have seen  it a few times. DWP send out reminder letters when a FN is about to expire, but they put the wrong FN expiry date on the letter. An example is:

A FN dated by the GP to expire on 14th May. The DWP letter (dated 30th April, and presumably sent that day) says that the period covered by the FN is actually up to 6th May (a copy of the FN was retained for records - it definitely says 14th May as the expiry date).

The letter continues, 'please send us another FN by 7th May'. This is quite vague. It is not clear whether 'send' means that the new FN should be posted by the 7th May or if it should have been received by DWP by 7th May. I believe the language is deliberately vague   It is not intended to be clear, the vagueness maximises the likelihood or confusion / error on the part of the claimant. This sets the scene for the next part of the letter:-

If you do not send us a medical certificate...this will result in your payment being stopped or suspended.  

So in the case of a vulnerable person, they believe that their FN expires on 14th because that is the date the GP wrote on it. The letter is threatening that the ESA will be stopped if a new FN is not 'sent' by 7th May. The GP might kindly write a new FN which overlaps with the previous one, or they might say that they are not allowed to do that and refuse to do it.

If the vulnerable person is 'fortunate' and their GP sympathetic and writes an overlapping FN, the vulnerable person still needs the FN to be in the possession of the DWP within a few days. Let us say the vulnerable person received the DWP reminder letter 3 days after the date it was written, so it dropped through the letterbox on 3rd May, that leaves 4 days to organise another FN and get it into the possession of the DWP, using the prepaid envelope supplied.

Having posted the new FN by 6th May, because that is what the letter appears to be saying (or does that mean the FN should be received by then???),  there is the likelihood of the next payment being delayed because the FN has not arrived yet.

Even if the vulnerable person could organise their GP to write a FN on the date that the reminder letter was received ,  3rd May (4 days before it is needed to be in the possession of DWP), and posted it the same day, there is still no guarantee that the FN will have been processed (opened, sorted, scanned) by the staff of post handling site B.

What about if the vulnerable person is not able to take the FN to a JC office - perhaps the office is not in their town, they simply cannot travel there to hand in the FN?  

When ringing the DWP contact centre, the person hears banal recorded message that 'if you have recently sent us medical evidence, please leave 9 working days.........'   Yes, really!!!  

I believe that the system is calculated to thwart all but the most determined, resourceful, able claimant from actually receiving their ESA payment in a timely and efficient manner.  

Timeline (for clarity)

30th April - DWP letter written
3rd May   - DWP received by claimant (brown envelope comes through letter box - )
6th May   - Date that the letter says that the old FN expires  
7th May   - Date that a new FN should be 'sent'  (Or does that mean received???)  
10th May - ESA usual payment date (2 week cycle) - the old FN is still in date on this day!!!!! but the DWP has sent a letter that said the old FN expired 4 days ago!!!!!  
14th May - Date that the old FN is dated to expire


I welcome comments about whether this happens regularly and how people manage this.

It doesn't surprise me that they do all that you have outlined. Abut 6 weeks ago (possibly longer, I can't remember) the DWP started texting us our signing on dates and times. Once it was on the wrong day and on 2 occasions it's had the wrong times.

It has been a while since I was at JC. I presume they are still making appointments for different times (to hassle claimants). Do they still write the appointments on anything? card, workbook?

Yep, workbook. It was a bit of a laff getting a text telling me to sign on a day I don't attend.

They cannot text me because I am zero telephone contact. They hate that