Disability Benefits

dodieoneuk

Hi. My 4 month old son has just been diagnosed with a heart condition and according to my mother-in-law, he should be entitled to some form of disability benefit. I wondered if anyone knew if this was correct. Many thanks for your help.

dmg24

Welcome to MSE dodieoneuk,

Does your child have care needs in addition to those of other children? If so, you may be able to claim DLA.

dodieoneuk

He's on several kinds of medication, which has to be given at specific times to assist the function of the heart - would that count?

alwaysonthego_2

As dmg has pointed out if a child needs extra care and supervision then an adverage child needs then DLA should be claimed. This can include the administration of medication and the extra supervision to prevent declining health. You should book an appointment with the cab for help with form filling.

dodieoneuk

Many thanks for your assistance. I'll call our local office in the morning.

SuziQ

In my experience when I was a health visitor,it is extremely difficult to get DLA ofr a child of this age group,as they are already so 'time intensive'. You have to provide evidence of care far greater than any other 4 month old therefore just giving medication may not be enough.
Some of the factors that we would include on a form for a very young child were things like continuous monitoring,suction,monitoring oxygen etc. Do you have aspecialist nurse involved in home care who could advise you re benefits? You really need to get some very specific help in completing the forms if you are to have any chance of succeeding-eg I had to claim for my youngest who is autistic,but having never filled a form out for his form of problem I took advice from here and also looked at information supplied by Cerebra and the Autistic society.Thankfully I was sucessful as we need the money to pay for therapy that is not available in our area.
The other thing you should do is alert your consultant GP and anyone else you name on your form that you are applying,so that they are forewarned-inevitably they will be asked for their report in a child so young.

Download the form and you will see what I mean about it being difficult-eg giving actual times spent on all care you give your child,over and above that which would be given to same-age child without his heart problem.

Good luck with your claim.