Hospital stay- reduction in state pension

Slinky

Could somebody please tell me if the information I've been given is correct that if you are drawing a state pension and have to go into hospital, the pension you are entitled to is reduced as the state are paying to look after you in hospital?

If it is correct, do you lose a complete day's pension per day in hospital or less than that?

Thanks in advance for your help

bex2002

i think it is only if you are staying in hospital for more than 6 weeks that i was last aware of - unless things have changed!

Slinky

Dad had 13 days in hospital at the end of May. He has since passed away and I'm filling in the form to get his last pension payment finalised. Didn't know if I needed to tell them about the hospital stay.

McKneff

Bex2002 is correct in saying that you do not lose your pension straightaway.
It is quite a number of weeks though not sure how many so stop worrying. Ask the DWP or go onto the .gov website.

monkeyspanner

Sorry to hear of your loss.
Basic state pension should be unaffected by any length of hospital stay but other benefits can be affected. For instance Attendance allowance stops after 28days in hospital but time limits for other benefits are different, for DLA I think it is 12 weeks.

One thing to remember is that hospital stays are counted as cummulative over a period so if your father had more than one hospital admission benefits may be affected. I think this is applies to a rolling preceeding 12 month period.

Your best approach is to declare any hospital admissions in the last 12 months and let the pension service sort out if this affects anything.

Slinky

Thanks monkeyspaner

He only had the 13 days and we never claimed attendance allowance or any others, sadly it was all too quick in the end.

pollypenny

Basic state pension is effected by hospital stays over six weeks. My father had to pay it back.

However, I read recently that this is about to change.

So sorry for your loss, slinky.

Pol x

sleepless_saver

State pension is not reduced or stopped if you are in hospital. Under the old system it did stop after a while, but no longer.

margaretclare

No, this doesn't happen. It is a good number of years since this was the case, but obviously it is still out there in the folklore.

The only thing that stops after 4 weeks is attendance allowance, but not state pension. After all, think about it, your bills will still need to be paid, won't they?

joyciebird

monkeyspanner wrote: »

Sorry to hear of your loss.
Basic state pension should be unaffected by any length of hospital stay but other benefits can be affected. For instance Attendance allowance stops after 28days in hospital but time limits for other benefits are different, for DLA I think it is 12 weeks.

One thing to remember is that hospital stays are counted as cummulative over a period so if your father had more than one hospital admission benefits may be affected. I think this is applies to a rolling preceeding 12 month period.

Your best approach is to declare any hospital admissions in the last 12 months and let the pension service sort out if this affects anything.

DLA is 28 days in hospital

anmarj

State pension in any form is no longer effect by any length in hospital but the department still needs to know because if the stay ends up being permanent or longer then they are no longer entitled to winter fuel payments after 52 weeks of admission.