NHS Bursary and Housing Benefit

sammi.jo

Hi

I've been on Income Support for the last year, but this has stopped now I've started an NHS-funded nursing course.

I receive the non-income assessed bursary, due to being on the diploma course, and being disabled, I was told I was still entitled to Housing Benefit.

I reported the obvious changes in income, and I have been ringing every week to find out what was going on.

Today, they said they checked my income and have recalculated the benefit, and that it is exactly the same as when I was on Income Support. This means that I get £650 a month bursary, and £539 of my rent is paid. This leaves me essentially £640 a month to live on.

My question is: does this sound right? Has anybody been on NHS bursaries and housing benefit and found this was about right?

I'm not going to do anything until the letter comes, however the landlord is bugging me because he's kindly allowed me to withhold rent until I knew what was going on.

Thanks in advance.

Indie_Kid

What other benefits do you receive? There are disregards for some parts of the NHS bursary.

sammi.jo

Thanks for your reply. I receive DLA (lower) for both care and mobility, on the grounds of being deaf. What are the NHS bursary disregards?

hippy-chicy

The standard disregards are
£303 for books
£390 for Travel
and £10 per week off the weekly income from the bursary (assuming your not getting a loan as well, which i dont think you can anyway with the NHS bursary)

There could be others though.

Are you getting the full NHS bursary? How much is it per year? £6900?

Your applicable amount will be higher than the standard rate for a single person as you will be getting a disability premium.

Morgan_Ree

hippy-chicy wrote: »

The standard disregards are
£303 for books
£390 for Travel
and £10 per week off the weekly income from the bursary (assuming your not getting a loan as well, which i dont think you can anyway with the NHS bursary)

There could be others though.

Are you getting the full NHS bursary? How much is it per year? £6900?

Your applicable amount will be higher than the standard rate for a single person as you will be getting a disability premium.

Is that true even though we are able to claim travel expenses?

Indie_Kid

Morgan_Ree wrote: »

Is that true even though we are able to claim travel expenses?

Some students (in general; not just NHS) have to pay to travel to uni.

sammi.jo

The amount that I get is actually £7,827 because I live in London.

I didn't get the disability premium on HB before because I got it on IS, so maybe it'll change.

Thanks for your help; it does seem to make sense now. I will phone them tomorrow to double-check with them.

Morgan_Ree - we can claim travel expenses on the difference between the cost of travelling to university and the cost of travelling to the placement, I believe.

Morgan_Ree

sammi.jo wrote: »

The amount that I get is actually £7,827 because I live in London.

I didn't get the disability premium on HB before because I got it on IS, so maybe it'll change.

Thanks for your help; it does seem to make sense now. I will phone them tomorrow to double-check with them.

Morgan_Ree - we can claim travel expenses on the difference between the cost of travelling to university and the cost of travelling to the placement, I believe.

No it's not the difference. As long as the travel to placement is further than your travel to uni you can claim for the entire journey.

I was just wondering why so much for travel is disregarded for HB purposes.

slummymummyof3

When I received an NHS bursary, I was also entitled to a student loan - although this was 9 years ago. Travelling expenses for placement were claimable providing your journey was further than your daily travel to university and it was the difference in mileage not the whole mileage. However, I appreciate that this might have changed more recently.

Morgan_Ree

It's definitely the entire journey. The one and only good thing about getting a placement miles away

Provided that the cost of travelling to and from your placement is in excess of your
normal daily travel costs between your term-time address and University you may claim

the full amount.

http://www.nhsbsa.nhs.uk/Students/Documents/Students/PPTravel_claim_form_v2_1.pdf

bigjl

I work for the NHS, when we have to work at somewhere further than our base station we get the extra only, not the entire journey. The fact that they want to know the difference between your journey to your college and the journey to your placement would infer that they will only pay the difference between the two, not the entire journey.

The reasoning behind it is that you shouldn't be out of pocket due to being on a placement, but also that you shouldn't be better off either.

The same procedure is used when we are on a training course, we only get the extra distance, when I go to one of our training centres I travel 20 miles, my base is 10 miles, I have always been given the extra 10 miles, not the full 20.

When you finish training and actually work for a Trust F/T you will find that they are really focussed on such small things, but are more than happy to spend hundreds of thousands on Modern Art for the foyer and "bonding weekends" for the senior managers. Though in my Trust they seem to be cottaging weekends.

EDIT
Just read the entire form and you are spot on to state that you will be paid the full amount, but the above wil be how things will proceed when you are employed, I think it may be down to the individual Trust, as the NHSBA form isn't the one that we use, it is a form specific to our Trust.