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Carers Allowance
With regards to the 35 hours per week of care required for Carers Allowance eligibility , how is this assessed?. if a potential claimant is on call during the night and lives at a different property address can this be added to the hours or does it have to be actual hours spent with the actual person who requires care .Thank you
There is not much in the way of law or guidance on the meaning of care. If the claimant states that they are providing the care and this is counter-signed by the person they are caring for, this is normally the limit of the enquiry. DMG 60040 states: “The claimant’s statement that the required number of hours are spent in caring should be accepted without further enquiry unless there is good reason to doubt it.”
Claimants should have a good faith basis for putting themselves forward as providing 35 hours of care - I am not sure that it would suffice to say you were “on call” the whole 35 hours if you were never actually called on to do anything - but beyond that I don’t think it is really helpful for us as advisers to try and define what does and doesn’t count as care.
Thanks for the information
It is clear though that presence is not always required e.g. the time spent travelling to and from a persons home can count towards the 35 hours and I’ve certainly had a case where education put the 35 hours at issue but the reality was that hourly contact was maintained by phone, text etc. and a tribunal had no issue with that (albeit that a DWP DM initially did).
Essentially though you worry about it only if it’s put at issue.
On a related note have the government confirmed that the extension put in place during lockdown to include emotional support (including phone calls) in the tasks of a caring role is carrying on? Not sure if I missed an announcement on that as I am assuming it’s still the case.
Well the Daily Express says it has so it must be true!
Gov.uk pages have not been amended to reflect a withdrawal i.e. they say it’s still there.
Oh yes hadn’t spotted that, sounds promising!
cheers Mike
I used a search engine. Regrettably the Express was the highest result.
regulations issued in Scotland this week (which should soon be followed by same regs for rest of GB) extend breaks in care coronavirus easements - the policy note says the ‘emotional support’ easement introduced by guidance will also continue ... full details in rightsnet news