Disability living allowance

Carers allowance is little but an insult. People, like myself, give up decent jobs to take care of their disabled, sick or elderly family member, often providing hands on care 24/7. Care agencies charge upwards of £16 per hour to provide a careworker, who will do minimum tasks, such as helping to wash, or making a sandwich. They do not cook, or go shopping, or do laundry.

Caring is exhausting, too many carers are isolated and living in poverty because they have been shafted by successive governments, the tightening of rules and the introduction of new legislation mean more people than ever, who are genuinely not capable of working, are being denied PIP, so those that look after them are also denied Carers allowance. When they are being ordered to attend back to work interviews, who looks after the person they care for? If they do not attend, sanctions are put in place.

Carers of pensionable age have their CA stopped, as it is then classed as an "overlapping benefit". The treatment of carers, and those they care for is nothing less than disgraceful.

Carers Allowance can still be claimed after pension age. If the state pension you receive is paid at an amount greater than the Carers allowance, then you do not get paid the Carers allowance but you retain underlying entitlement to Carers allowance. Underlying entitlement means you are treated as entitled to the Carers allowance even when your state pension exceeds the weekly rate of Carers allowance. This is useful as it triggers the addition of a Carers Premium. Carers premium is an extra amount added to benefit calculations when claiming Pension Credit, Housing Benefit or Council Tax Support. Carers Premium is worth £34.60 a week extra when added to the benefit calculation. So an extra £34.60 a week of your actual income can be ignored. Therefore if you are over pension age and care for someone who gets Attendence Allowance, PIP or DLA, you should consider claiming the Carers Allowance.

£34.60 on top of Pension Credit. For more than likely caring for a disabled partner, parent or adult child, and after probably having cared for many years, often with back breaking physical management that even paid careworkers are not allowed to do unless there are two of them.
Carers Allowance will only be paid once, for an adult child, who is incapable of even breathing for themselves, let alone physically being able to move. Two parents, both having to care, because somebody has to do the night shift - but this isn't recognised either. Carers Allowance IS an absolute disgrace. For people that have to give up their job, who might have a small amount of savings which puts them over the levels that entitle them to Housing Benefit etc, the little they have managed to save ( and we are talking peanuts here) is swallowed up by the cost of caring - and consecutive governments don't give a ****. I mean REALLY don't give a ****. There is no 40 hour week for a carer, they cannot clock off and walk away. It is often anything up to 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. For anyone that thinks this is impossible, or an exaggeration, I can assure you it's not. Respite is often unavailable, care "packages" are minimal, now even less as many councils have introduced the critical needs only, which means that those who are not classed as having critical need, get a minimum care package, maybe an hour or two once or twice weekly. Someone that is "bed blocking" costs the NHS thousands. To pay a care agency £16 hour plus for the "services" of a care worker costs thousands (no shopping, or cooking mind you - they don't do that).

Governments know full well that the majority of people can't, or won't, refuse to care for their loved one. In fact, they bank on it, and that is why they are allowed to get away with the despicable dismissal of this very large group of people. I don't usually get into personal stuff but on CA, I will. I gave up my job, two jobs in fact, to look after my daughter. Just before she left my care, although I loved her with all my heart, I was close to a breakdown. I was in financial difficulty (those on CA who are just over the income threshold don't even get free prescriptions, even though caring may have caused physical problems, even though those on Job Seekers Allowance get free prescriptions), ill, had been put through the hell that is the DWP inquisition and being made to feel that I was making a fuss about what my caring entailed.

5 years on, my daughter has been in a special secure hospital for those with learning difficulties and severe behavioural disorders, is still on the 4 times daily insulin, still has psychotic episodes and has a staff ratio sometimes of 2-1. I did this for years, for under £100pw.

Sorry Duncan, I know you are only giving the facts, it is no doubt useful. But when I see words like entitlement and premium, it makes my blood boil. Entitlement to a proper of amount of money for saving the government and NHS a small fortune is the kind of "entitlement" that we should see.

stumpy11 said:

Hi, if anyone is trying for DLA the most important question is "how far can you walk?" if you have severe pain in your feet, the answer is 0 feet/meters, if you put 50 feet you will not stand a chance. Attach as much medical evidence as you can to support your claim, get your GP to fill in the section someone who knows you, you could also get CAB to fill in the rest of form for you Most people who apply for DLA don't get it first time, if you think you have are genuine case and you meet the criteria "APPEAL", ALSO WRITE TO YOUR MP, AND EXPLAIN TO HIM why you think qualify.
I appealed when I was turned down, and went to a tribunal and won within 5 minutes.
All I say is fill out the form truthfully and send as much evidence as possible with it, if you don't try you don't know, be persistent if turned down, use your MP, GP, Consultants, it is tedious and takes a long time, but you have nothing to lose but a lot to gain.

Click to expand...

Hi I wish it was that easy for my 2 daughters my youngest is type 1 had dla till she approached her 13th birthday then refused it even with evidence. Went to appeal and we might as well been talking to a bunch of monkey's the gp did know nothing and the DWP rep didn't realise to turn a page to continue reading hence they refused it with so much evidence backing up what we were saying. Also my eldest daughter has been diagnosed with servere phycosis (sitzophiania ) along with seizure and she also refused even with reports from doctors phychiatrist and school. They seem to look at certain words our claim was filled in by a welfare officer from the mud and she was shocked it was refused. Gonna email our MP I think now it's a postcode lottery as well.

DLA and PIP is so hard now to claim even with evidence backing up what you put on the forms they still refuse it. On the government website it has a list of the eligibility to claim and it says to qualify you must have one or more listed. Well my youngest daughter meets over 2 of the eligibility listed and was refused. My older daughter who meets almost all in the list and needs 24 hr care and is unable to go outside unaided also refused. Yet there's people out there who get it for a sore finger (seen on benefits programme on channel 5) and also get high rate everything and broadcast that they were putting it on so they could get the money and mobility car. It's people like that who ruin it for the people who really need it and are genuine.

So let's make a plan to overthrow the government and claim back what is rightfully ours!

Tracey167 said:

D
Yet there's people out there who get it for a sore finger (seen on benefits programme on channel 5) and also get high rate everything and broadcast that they were putting it on so they could get the money and mobility car. It's people like that who ruin it for the people who really need it and are genuine.

Click to expand...

Don't believe everything you have seen on Channel 5 - remember Benefits Street? This is nothing more than classic propaganda designed to encourage people to blame each other rather than those who are really responsible for the situation that so many find themselves in today....a bit like the (imaginary) migrants who arrive and get huge council houses and all the benefits they can spend etc. etc. etc. ...really? I don't think so - it's classic divide and conquer tactics. ...

And the latest study HERE showing how DWP "sanctions" ars forcing people to beg at food banks. Will you continue to put up with this and just roll over again? The problem with just rolling over again is that sometimes you just get too sore to take another shafting....what to do then?

As any fule kno, the best way to lift people out of poverty is to give them less money..?????? ...!!!!

Duplicate post but y'know.....stuff like this needs to be known about!

"And the latest contribution to societal well-being from the caring, sharing DWP........HERE.

FGS, how much longer are we going to put up with this??"

Deespee23 said:

Duplicate post but y'know.....stuff like this needs to be known about!

"And the latest contribution to societal well-being from the caring, sharing DWP........HERE.

FGS, how much longer are we going to put up with this??"

Click to expand...

Let's start a petition online see how far it gets us. We will never know if we don't try . Sick of pen pushers.