Severe Disability Premiums

burkey365

i am in receipt of DLA high mobility and since last september the care component was changed from low to medium rate care. I am also on ESA. I am also on Direct payments which pays for a carer. my question is this, do i qualify for Severe Disability Premium which i had never known about and if so is it backdated to when my DLA claim was looked at and raised from low to medium care...thanks in anticipation for any replies

Tally-Ho_2

Hi,

The Severe Disability Premium is an amount added to ones applicable amount when calculating means tested benefits such as Income Support, Housing Benefit and Council Tax Benefit, it is not a payment in itself.

To claim SDP one must be on middle or high care component of DLA and either live alone or be treated as living alone and no one must be claiming carers allowance for the SDP claimant.

There is more info on premiums for disabled people here:

http://www.direct.gov.uk/en/DisabledPeople/FinancialSupport/OtherBenefitsAndSupport/DG_068683

Tally

burkey365

i do live alone in a disabled modified 1 bedroom flat, nobody gets carers allowance, i also get HB and council tax..i was on low rate care component of DLA which got changed to middle rate last september...does this apply please

idvi

I get severe disability premium too for being on income based esa, dla mid care, housing and council tax benefits.
live on my own and no carer or anything. i get severe disability premium of £50'ish a week and i think you should too

as soon as I got dla and esa I called them up and they applied it immediately. i dont know about back dating though

burkey365

thanks idvi, the confusion is that first of all i have never heard of this premium, welfare applied for all my benefits while i was in hospital and i got lower rate care dla high rate mobility. When i left hospital i wasw told to apply for ESA which went fine, got accepted, then a weeks after leaving hospital, welfare officers visited and said i should be getting medium rate care which they filled in and i was boosted from lower to middle rate care. Socia Services set up direct payments to pay for a carer for me this is not carers allowance but does this affect SDP and why did DLA people not alert the benefits people...this is so confusing

[Deleted User]

They should have been informed that your dla have been changed,you might have a good case for getting sdp premium back-dated,you need to speak to the BDC and ask.

burkey365

woodbine who is the BDC please

kusadasi040667

Hi , BDC (Benefit delivery centre) is the department that process your claims & yes you can ask for the DM (decision maker)to look at your case if award is back dated they normally cap it to a year but that obviously is up to the DM . Terrible that people are not given the benefit that they are entitled to esp when its a ' joined type of benefit' sadly one department doesn't talk to another as its supposed to do !
fingers crossed for you K