Carers Allowance rate should be raised

Danday

50Twuncle wrote: »

Correct - and the extra costs caused by disability are on average £570 per week !

https://www.scope.org.uk/campaigns/extra-costs/disability-price-tag
Which my £228 per month received from mid care DLA do not cover

And as for the £250 that my wife receives to cover the extra costs of looking after me - you are kidding aren't you ?
She does a good 40 hours per week (that she would otherwise be in paid employment) - earning a minimum of £350 per week - but instead receives a pittance for.......

As I have said both benefits are not compensation.
They are simply a small token to cover some but not all of costs either arising from a disability nor being a full time carer.

If such payments were made to compensate not only would each individual would have to substantiate the actual weekly costs to them individually in respect of their disability and/or the amount lost in income on an individual basis if they were a carer.
Plus the total amount if this was to happen coming out of the Welfare Budget would make it unaffordable.

RedMonty

Cyclamen wrote: »

My husband claims carers allowance for me..and he darned well deserves it. He gave up his job as i couldn't cope in between my PA/Carer visits. This was not a choice I was at risk.

A normal husbands role does not involve showering your wife from necessity not pleasure, turning her in bed, manual handling, coping with prescriptions and medications, going to Dr's appointments with me and yes sometimes for me without me. Being on call to help. picking me up of floor, hours in A&E or phoning Dr's. Having cooked dinner stopping to hold me as I am ill. Being 'on-call' constantly in flares (which happen often) by means of a wireless doorbell (how rude and dehumanising does that feel?). Even taking me shopping, persuading sales assistants that he has to come in t help me try on Bra's as I can't manage alone, lifting things of shelves, he is tied and at times only gets to do the things I want. He works more than 35 hours as a carer, yes he loves me and he is my husband but he gave up his work to do this.
...
I was told to claim carers allowance for looking after him (he gets low rate PIP) but refused. There is no way I qualify. This was a council official who was trying to 'maximise my benefits', and seemed non-plussed when I said but I don't qualify.. and was very insistent.

For the love of God, you should claim carer's allowance for looking after him. Your husband has his own needs, and the Government has assessed him and agreed that he is someone who is eligible for care's allowance. I'm not sure why you say you don't qualify. If he had a problem at night, it would be you who would get help etc.

He gave up his job for you, so he needs your support which I am sure you provide to the best of your ability in many small ways. You also need some money of your own which you can use to buy him treats etc - you can use your CA for this.

Finally, one large element of getting CA is that it lets you build up full annual pension credits, which will benefit you in the future. You don't want to end up in a situation where he gets full State Pension thanks to his credits from CA, and you get far less because you didn't apply for CA.

Terry_Towelling

I'm a bit late to the debate (only just joined the forum) but I care for my wife who has dementia. I gave up work 6 years ago to do it and it is getting really hard now. There would be no way that I could take any sort of job and do the caring role so I can't even earn the £120 per week you are allowed to. Yes, we do get a council tax reduction of 25% as she is in receipt of attendance allowance - that is good and well appreciated.


I did have a similar thought about the living wage and how it perhaps should have a link to CA. If it were easier to make ends meet with a higher CA rate, more people might be able to stay at home and do the caring role. This would clearly have an effect on the country's finances and cost the taxpayer dear. But perhaps someone who would be a carer but cannot afford to give up work will end up putting a loved one into care which might then cost the Local Authority £750 per week in care/nursing home fees.


I take the point about abuse of the system and fraudulent claims. I have also seen first hand how someone has managed to obtain CA (quite legitimately it seems) simply by bringing up a child who attends mainstream school and seemingly has no special needs but does have a medical condition that is managed by simple medication.


So all systems can be abused (and will be) but, in an ideal world, those doing a good job caring full time for someone in difficult circumstances perhaps should have a bit more financial help than the current CA would seem to give.


Maybe a separate band of CA for those who are unable to do any paid work at all would help

Cyclamen

Redmonty
Thanks .. my pension credits are covered by ESA support group I believe.
To claim carers allowance i would need to do 35 hours a week of caring for my husband.. i just don't do this. I don't want to be one of the people being fraudulent.. but do support an increase in carers allowance for those who genuinely do caring roles.

Even if I did claim the extra money would be taken by social services as my 'client contribution' towards my social care package (about 2.5 hours a day). So it would not be something I could use to buy him treats.