ESA Letter

isabella

Hi ,I wonder if someone can give me some advice please?.ive received a letter from the dwp saying that I cannot claim e,s allowance  because I don't have enough ni contributions, I have sent sick notes in for the past 6 months and had a medical assessment at the end of July, I have t received any thing about this yet ,my question is I rung the dwp and they have told me to just ignore the letter,so what should I do ,?many thanks

CockneyRebel

Hello isabella and welcome
Can you tell us a little more about you and your situation ?

You might not be elegible for ESA (CB) but you might be able to claim ESA(IR) depending on your situation.
Try putting your details into one of the on line calculators to see what help you may get
It would also be sensible to get trained advice from CAB, welfare rights etc.

CR

BenefitsTrainingCo

Hi isabella - as Cockney Rebel says,  there are two varieties of ESA - one is called contributory ESA and the other is the means tested version called income-related ESA. If you don't have enough national insurance contributions to get the contributory version, then you may be able to get the income-related one (and in fact some people get both!), and this will depend on your income and that of your partner if you have one. You may soon get the decision from the DWP about whether or not you have passed the work capability assessment, and if you are going to be viewed as too sick to work. Whether or not you are viewed as having 'limited capability for work' (i.e. being too sick to work) is nothing to do with whether you have enough NI contributions. The best advice I can give you at this stage is to wait and see what your work capability assessment decision is, and then go to the Benefits Calculator part of this Scope website and see what you should be claiming. Alternatively, get back to us with some more information about your circumstances and we will try and advise you further. 
Hope this helps!

Jayne