One of our benefit officers has been told by Blackppol and the Pension Service that there has been a change to the law and DLA Mobility cannot be paid in a residential home. I am hoping this is wrong - has anyone heard of this?

I haven't heard anything on this. Mind you I have had several conversations with DLA officers recently surrounding the whole issue of funding and care homes etc and I have to say different officers have different ideas on what is payable and when. As far as I am aware there has been no change to do with mobility not being payable to anyone in a residential home. In fact we have clients who will be having their mobility re-instated after moving from hospital type accommodation to a residential home. (or at least that was the plan...)

I would certainly be interested to know if anyone has heard anything to do with this and has any further info. If this is in fact correct it is likely to cause considerable problems for those who will be affected.

A change such as this would had to have been publicly announced and consulted on. So it is one of those infamous DWP office myths and yet again evidence of poorly trained and supported staff being expected to deal with front line queries. I suspect it's folk getting confused with effect of hospitalisation on DLA mobility. Reg 21A SS (DLA) Regs 1991 refers.

If one was reading the first para of Reg 9 (1) (which refers to scheduled accommodation & DLA) very quickly, it might be easy to not realise that it is refering to DLA care component only.

This may not be as straight forward as it first seems.

I agree that mobility is paid when someone is in residential care. However, this is assuming that they are self funding or funded fully or in part by the local authority (social services).

More increasingly, placements in Nursing Homes are funded wholly by the Local Health Authority. This is usually the case when the resident requires the type of care provided in hospital (Continuing Health Care). If this is the case, the resident will be treated as if they are in hospital by the DWP. The advantage of this system, for the resident, is that they will not be asked to contribute towards the cost of their care (the same as hospital).

If the Health Authority funds none or only part of the placement, then the resident should be in receipt of the mobility component.