The Work and Pensions Committee of MPs has welcomed a “small change” to the DWP’s ‘special rules’ guidance but says more fundamental reform is needed.
Note: If you are considered to be terminally ill, ‘special rules’ are applied to your claim for Universal Credit, ESA, DLA, PIP or AA, to ensure it is dealt with swiftly.
The Committee has drawn attention that on 24 April 2019 the DWP Medical (factual) reports: A guide to completion on the completion of the DS1500 form was updated. It now says:
“The purpose of the DS1500 is to tell DWP about a patient who meets the special rules criteria. It is not used to make a claim for benefit.
You should complete the form promptly if you believe that your patient meets the special rules criteria, namely:
- they have a progressive disease and, as a consequence of that disease
- you would not be surprised if your patient were to die within 6 months
The special rules criteria do not just apply to patients with cancer.
As an example, they may also apply to severe, life limiting cardiorespiratory and neurological conditions (this is not an exhaustive list).”
The MPs say both medical treatments and the whole system and levels of disability benefits have changed significantly since a 2010 consultation that Government is justifying the current rules on. It also points to “a series of distressing recent media reports of people dying before they complete the “normal” assessment process”
Chair of the Work and Pensions Committee Frank Field MP said:
“When we now seem to hear weekly of people dying before they can get through the rigours of a disability claim to help them live better, it is beyond shameful that Government has allowed this situation to persist for so long for people who know they are dying. Fighting this Department and its broken, impersonal systems is no way for any human being -and their loved ones - to spend their last precious months on this earth.
The small change DWP has finally made is welcome, but it’s no substitute for actually changing the law that is causing so much unnecessary distress. The Department recently told us it is listening to the Committee and changing its approach. Will it now listen to people coping with the worst news this life can bring? And help to ease the ending of a human life – not make it even harder.”
Also published by the Committee are new case studies from the National Association of Welfare Rights Advisers (NAWRA) that describe “the human cost of the uncertainty and ambiguity of the special rules for terminal illness”.
NAWRA - of which DR UK is a member - says:
“We recommend the Department adopt the approach taken in the Social Security Act (Scotland) 2018 in determining who can use the SRTI. This would permit claimants to use the SRTI if: "It is the clinical judgement of a registered medical practitioner that the individual has a progressive disease that can reasonably be expected to cause the individual's death"
For more information see Small change for dying, when law needs change @ www.parliament.uk