Budget - tougher for DLA claimants

Indie_Kid

karatedragon wrote: »

My friend's care visits are not arranged through SS (Social Services??)

She pays per visit privately to a local care company who invoice her. She pays the invoice from her DLA money.

Her family contacted the company directly and they came round and did an assessment and produced a care plan.

Check the internet or Yellow Pages for local private care companies and then maybe you can get the help you need to get dressed and motivated using the money from your Care Component.

£18.95 won't go far. The place mum works charges around £7p/h.

Bryando

How much does it cost to appeal a decision? As people will appeal and in turn cost will be involved in that. So would the Govt be looking at a massive bill due to people appealing on top of everybody getting a medical.

karatedragon

sh1305 wrote: »

£18.95 won't go far. The place mum works charges around £7p/h.

My friend gets Higher Rate Care - Assumably by your figure you only get Lower Rate care - so have less care needs than my friend.

Indie_Kid

karatedragon wrote: »

My friend gets Higher Rate Care - Assumably by your figure you only get Lower Rate care - so have less care needs than my friend.

Bit of an assumption there! I have quite a lot of care needs - the DWP (who don't know what they're talking about) disagree. Yet, a friend of mine who I see quite a lot would disagree strongly.

I should be on higher rate care.

Trialia

sh1305 wrote: »

My indefinite award is because I was born with 2 incureable conditions; both of which will only get worse the older I get. Nothing to do with self pity.

I also have two incurable systemic conditions - one fluctuates, one is degenerative. There's a high likelihood I will be in a wheelchair by the time I'm 40. I also have rapid-cycling bipolar disorder, very difficult to manage and also incurable. I'm in recept of indefinite DLA (LRC and HRM).

I fight every day to keep what independence I have - I'm 24. Would you want to be kept in your parents' house for the rest of your life if there were something that meant you could live by yourself like DLA does for me? I wouldn't be able to afford to live alone without it, and it helps pay for the adaptations and other helpful things that make living by myself a possibility - grab rails, adapted flat, special utensils like my shaped mugs that help me to have a cuppa without dropping it all over the floor (hand tremors, muscle spasms and weakness), mobility aids, chair to use in my walk-in wet room/shower (I can't stand in one place for very long), and clothes that fasten easily for days when my hands are bad, though even then I still have trouble.

But karatedragon, if you were in my position or SH's, would you want some stranger coming in every day to help you get out of bed and get dressed? Of course you wouldn't. It's the blunt edge of the humiliation that goes along with needing so much help to lead a life other people my age take for granted. DLA enables me to live an almost normal life, when even working part-time sent me into a relapse - it is the best I can do to take care of my body and my home on a regular basis, and I can't add much in terms of responsibility on top of that because I'm not physically or mentally capable of it.

karatedragon

sh1305 wrote: »

Bit of an assumption there! I have quite a lot of care needs - the DWP (who don't know what they're talking about) disagree. Yet, a friend of mine who I see quite a lot would disagree strongly.

I should be on higher rate care.

Then you should appeal.

My friend's claim went straight through without any need for appeal or any DWP medical and she got the Higher Rate Care she needed by providing all the evidence required.

If you can demonstrate that you have the care needs that entitle you to HRC then you should get it. Either at application or tribunal.

Higher rate care is paid if you have significant needs Day and Night.

Trialia

karatedragon wrote: »

Then you should appeal.
...
If you can demonstrate that you have the care needs that entitle you to HRC then you should get it. Either at application or tribunal.

Spoken like someone who has no idea just how stressful the process can be! Have you any idea what it's like to have to focus on everything you can't do for that long if you spend most of your life trying to do everything you can?

The Pension Service gentleman who helped me fill out my last DLA form said I ought to be in receipt of middle-rate care, but they try their best to deny that to as many people as they can because it entitles one to 'severe disablement premium' on other benefits. I got indefinite LRC and HRM - and was so glad to get the indefinite after all my fighting for it. I was too scared to appeal in case they took it away again.

Oldernotwiser

Doom_and_Gloom wrote: »

What about equipment that the NHS can not afford to give out to the disabled and so the person needs to save out of their DLA to get it? What happens then? The NHS won't magically be able to pay out for these things you know so that helps no one. I don't think people who say what you have said think it through.

Oh, I've thought it though well enough. If we stopped paying DLA to people who need help but don't use their DLA to pay for it, we would be able to afford far more for those who have more expensive requirements.

Indie_Kid

Oldernotwiser wrote: »

Oh, I've thought it though well enough. If we stopped paying DLA to people who need help but don't use their DLA to pay for it, we would be able to afford far more for those who have more expensive requirements.

That's assuming the DWP would agree to paying for it.

Oldernotwiser

LindsayO wrote: »

But not all care needs, mean hiring a carer, they might mean buying care supplies, like incontenance pads, nappy cream and baby wipes for a wheelchair user with no feeling below the waist who is incontenant.

Of course not all care costs involve paying a carer! Why not just provide the things you mention direct, using the power of bulk buying to bring costs down?