Forum Home → Discussion → Benefits for older people → Thread
Right to reside with cancer diagnosis
Hi all,
Would be very grateful for any thoughts. I am concerned my client has no RtR. She only speaks Spanish so conversations and details have been reasonably limited so far. She is a Spanish national.
She arrived in April 2012 and worked continuously until middle of June ‘16, when she was diagnosed with cancer and unable to work. Her cancer is aggressive, but I do not believe she is special rules. This may change. She does not have family that live in the UK (aside from a sister who now has British nationality).
How exactly she stopped work is unclear - it seems like she had two employers and did not meet the SSP criteria with either and simply stopped work on the basis of her diagnosis. She made a PC and Housing Benefit claim at the end of July. Neither of these have processed yet - HB is waiting for PC entitlement. PC were unable to give details of the claim (exact date etc) as she only had a home visit (with I suspect an HRT in October).
Am I correct in thinking that if she immediately stopped worked then claimed PC, she will be understood as retaining her worker status through being ‘temporarily’ unfit for work. What happens if the gap is deemed excessive? She has already been issued a NSP so I am concerned.
Thanks
My opinion would be that your client is, at the very least, able to retain her worker status as someone who is temporarily unable to work because of an illness. The test of her inability is unrelated to any test in the benefits system, for eg WCA. Instead the test is whether she can be described as unable to do the the work that she had been doing. She doesn’t need to have claImed any sickness or disability benefit but she does need to provide evidence of her illness. Temporary simply means not permanent. It is her inability to work which must be temporary, not the illness.
Alternatively, she might have a case to say she has a permanent right to reside as someone who has reached retirement age and has worked in the UK for the preceding year and resided in the UK for more than 3 years. So hopefully, there shouldn’t be a problem.
See p.150 and 190 of Migrants Handbook 8th edition.
That’s brilliant, thank you.