Changing The Person I Care For On Carers Allowance

acharris

Hi all, need some advice. I claim Carer Allowance for my Dad, buy sadly he has been admitted to hospital the last week and the outcome looks like he won't survive much longer.

My Mam gets PIP and I was wondering what the process would be to change my carers allowance to her as she needs helps with things due to Arthritis and other issues and now obviously with my dad being gone. 

Will they just change the person I am caring for and continue my claim or will it be a new claim? Thanks and Merry Christmas 

poppy12345

I'm sorry to hear that. You will have to cancel your current claim and start a new one but claims can take anything up to about 3 months, sometimes longer. Are you claiming any other benefits?

acharris

Universal Credit with the carer premium. But I read that Carer Allowance will continue for up to eight weeks, so this might be the better option and claim after for the carer allowance for my mother. As I think I can claim the carer element on UC without claiming CA? Thanks

Alice_Holt

acharris said:

Universal Credit with the carer premium. But I read that Carer Allowance will continue for up to eight weeks, so this might be the better option and claim after for the carer allowance for my mother. As I think I can claim the carer element on UC without claiming CA? Thanks

      Yes you can.

calcotti

acharris said:

Universal Credit with the carer premium. But I read that Carer Allowance will continue for up to eight weeks, 

The 8 week run on is following a death.

When he goes into hospital PIP need to be informed and his entitlement to PIP ends after 28 days. Your CA will stop at the same time.

To maintain the carer element of UC you will simply need to report a change in your UC journal advising them that the person you care for has changed.

NedS

calcotti said:

To maintain the carer element of UC you will simply need to report a change in your UC journal advising them that the person you care for has changed.

You would need to report the change under Report a Change and then Caring for Someone.

There is no way on the system to simply update the name of the person you are caring for, so you'll need to report caring for your dad has ended, and then report caring for mum has subsequently started.

So you must first report that you are no longer caring for your Dad. When reporting the change, give an end date when the care ended

Then report another change to say you are now caring for Mum. Report the date the care started as the day after care for your Dad ended.

You can then post a message to your journal to clarify the situation, but the actual changes must be reported by you on your account, as described above.

calcotti

Thanks Ned - that's really useful. Am I right in thinking that this should be processed quickly on UC (unlike the very long times waiting for Carer's Allowance claims to be processed). Once OP knows end of CA probably wise to put a note in journal as a payment query too so that the CA deduction is adjusted and apportioned as necessary (if OP is not going to make new CA claim).

Alice_Holt

NedS said:

calcotti said:

To maintain the carer element of UC you will simply need to report a change in your UC journal advising them that the person you care for has changed.

You would need to report the change under Report a Change and then Caring for Someone.

There is no way on the system to simply update the name of the person you are caring for, so you'll need to report caring for your dad has ended, and then report caring for mum has subsequently started.

So you must first report that you are no longer caring for your Dad. When reporting the change, give an end date when the care ended

Then report another change to say you are now caring for Mum. Report the date the care started as the day after care for your Dad ended.

You can then post a message to your journal to clarify the situation, but the actual changes must be reported by you on your account, as described above.

     Thanks, that's very useful.

     Is there an online guide on how to report changes in the UC journal that someone outside of the DWP could access?  

NedS

calcotti said:

Thanks Ned - that's really useful. Am I right in thinking that this should be processed quickly on UC (unlike the very long times waiting for Carer's Allowance claims to be processed). Once OP knows end of CA probably wise to put a note in journal as a payment query too so that the CA deduction is adjusted and apportioned as necessary (if OP is not going to make new CA claim).

Once the new caring details have been declared, it creates a system task for the Case Manager to Verify Caring Activity. They will check that the named person the claimant is caring for is in receipt of a qualifying benefit and check that no one else is declared as already caring for them. They will either then approve or reject the change which causes the system to put the carers element into payment, or not. I'm not a CM so have never done this personally, but that's my understanding of the process (others may be able to confirm or correct the details). The CM should complete the task by the end of the AP so as not to affect the next payment, so yes, they should be processed quickly. For @acharris if possible I would recommend reporting the change towards the start of a new AP to give the Case Manager plenty of time.

Alice_Holt said:

    

Thanks, that's very useful.

     Is there an online guide on how to report changes in the UC journal that someone outside of the DWP could access?  

Sorry Alice, I'm not aware of a good guide. There's a Help guide in the claimants account, which is OK and is improving all the time, and I know DWP has made some youtube videos available but I've never watched them.

I know from personal experience that declaring caring changes can be a little tricky with the binary way the system works. A scenario we see often is that a claimant will declare they are caring for someone before the qualifying benefit has been awarded. The CM then rejects the Verify Caring Activity task. The claimant will then need to redeclare the change once the qualifying benefit has been awarded, but because the previous declaration was rejected, subsequent reports of caring cannot be correctly processed until the claimant first reports they are NOT caring (to clear/reset the system) before reporting that they ARE caring again. Trying to explain that to them and getting them to do it is sometimes not so straight forward!

Most things need to be reported as a change by the claimant in the UC system (rather than just writing it on the journal). About the only change I'm aware of that it is not possible to report the change is when someone is a student, which they should put on their journal and the CM will collect the relevant details from them manually.

calcotti

NedS said:….
A scenario we see often is that a claimant will declare they are caring for someone before the qualifying benefit has been awarded. The CM then rejects the Verify Caring Activity task. 
..

Then the opposite problem occurs that people are often advised that people should declare they are caring for somebody if the cared for is applying for PIP or AA because if they don’t the carer element doesn’t get backdated to the start of the PIP/AA award start date if awarded, on the grounds that the UC claimant didn’t previously say they were caring.