My son, 43, has a diagnosis of paranoid schizophrenia. He has been on Universal Credit for several years.
Today he got a message to say he must have a telephone interview with an agent “to review your Universal Credit claim, discuss the information you have already provided and for you to provide further evidence. Make sure you have access to any documents you have already provided during the interview.”
I can’t think of any documents he’s ever provided, or could provide. He has never had a face-to-face interview without me or a health professional being present.
Has anyone any experience of such an interview, especially in relation to someone with a mental health condition? Do you know what documents he might be asked for?
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Hi @StarFish_1502, welcome to the forum. Have you spoken to your son social worker or care manager? They should be helping him out with this. The only thing I can suggest is to make sure he got medical reports and any other information about his health condition when he speaks to them. That all I can think of but maybe contact the person he is under for some sort of letter explaining his condition but also make sure they include why he couldn’t work. Maybe tyre citizen advice and the carers helpline for further information and advice.
Good luck.
@StarFish_1502
I’ve no experience but since Carers UK have teamed up with Access Social Care (charity) I looked at their services - I suggest calling Carers UK Helpline:
""For information and signposting, our telephone Helpline is available on 0808 808 7777 from Monday to Friday, 9am – 6pm (including Bank Holidays).
If you have a more complex query or would like more detailed guidance, we suggest you contact our email Helpline (advice@carersuk.org), as we’ll be able to provide more information.
If you have a general enquiry, please email info@carersuk.org""
In case you need to have objective advice about your rights and legal ‘Access to Social Care’ for legal advice this charity that Carers UK are working with say
QUOTE: We provide free, confidential and impartial advice on a range of issues.
We are not always able to offer casework, but where we do we will write to individual clients with more detail on the work and terms and conditions relating to that. The information in the document below applies to next steps information and advice, rather than to casework.
Telephone based advice: How We Work - Telephone-based advice
hope something/someone can help you more
Well, that was a disaster.
We agreed an interview time this morning at 11. The work coach refused to say in advance what documents my son might need.
My son uses my email and phone number as he has neither, so it was only when I woke up today that I wondered if UC did, in fact, have my phone number. There is no way to check what details they hold for you and my son was with his CPN when he made the application 6 years ago. So we posted a journal message at 8.30 to give them the number.
But no phone call. I realised that if they did have a different number I should class it as a change of circumstances.
Now I suppose we’ll just have to wait to see what happens. Grr!