Claiming carers allowance

muddlingmywaythrough

I claim carers allowance for my friend. Unfortunately she has just had a fall and had to go into hospital. She will be in there for at least 2 weeks but most likely longer as she will need to go to a rehab setting after this. I've seen online that I need to update my circumstances on my carers allowance claim and I assume my pay will stop immediately?? How easy/long is it to re-activate the claim? Also although I am not currently seeing her every day I will be running errands etc for her (for the next week at least) as there is a lot of things I need to sort out. Should I leave informing DWP until next week? I don't want to lose my allowance when I am still 'working' but I definitely don't want to get penalised for claiming when I shouldn't be.

Brie

No it's not immediate.  This below seems to say it will stop 12 weeks after the individual goes into hospital.  It may stop sooner if their benefit like attendance allowance stops but even that won't be immediate.  

Carer's Allowance: Report a change in circumstances - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)

If you temporarily stop providing care for someone

You can still get Carer’s Allowance if you temporarily stop providing care. This means any period when you spend less than 35 hours a week caring for the other person.

The person you care for must still receive their disability benefit.

You must tell DWP if you temporarily stop providing care and:

• you or the person you care for will be in hospital, a nursing home, or respite care for more than 12 weeks
• you stop caring for more than 28 days for any other reason

huckster

Carers UK website answers this question.

Carer’s Allowance and breaks in care | Carers UK

"If the person you look after goes into hospital and you are no longer providing care for at least 35 hours a week, you can continue to get Carer's Allowance for up to 12 weeks or until their disability benefit stops. The proviso here is that you or the person you care for must have spent at least eight of those weeks in hospital.

• If you are looking after a child who was under 18 when they went into hospital, their disability benefit can continue to be paid for the whole time they are there.

• If you look after an adult aged 18+ their disability benefit will stop after 28 days (and may stop sooner if they have been in hospital or residential care in the 28 days before this current stay).

Note that Carer’s Allowance will stop if your total breaks add up to more than 12 weeks in the past 26 weeks."

Brie

So - tell DWP when you're friend went into hospital.  They will work out the rest.  Ensure that this is done for both their benefit and for yours as well (different bits of DWP don't seem to talk to other bits for some reason.)

Sometimes you will find that they continue to pay you beyond when they should.  If that happens tell them again.  We needed to do this 4 times for my OH who was getting Carer's for looking after his mom (on Attendance).  DWP is not allowed to reclaim money it shouldn't have paid out if they have been informed correctly.  So OH got an extra 4 months payments with no need to repay.  Keep records as that will help should they make an error.  

muddlingmywaythrough

Thank you for all the replies and apologies for not responding sooner - even though my friend is in hospital it's been more hectic than usual where I've had so much to deal with.

I understand the logic of telling the dwp straight away but I can just see it being more of a headache and it sounds like I should have a few weeks before it would become an issue.  The expectation at the moment is that my friend will be home before 12 weeks have passed so it should be fine however as soon as I think her stay in hospital and then a rehab unit could go past 12 weeks I will contact dwp. I know it means I could have to repay some of the payments that have been made while she's in hospital but hopefully I can avoid this and if I can't then I will just repay it. I think it would be less of a headache to repay X amount of money that I've been overpaid at a later date than it would be to contact the dwp now because that is never straightforward and to be blunt I wouldn't trust them not to get it wrong!