Thousands of disabled people in Greater Manchester have had their benefits stopped during extended hospital stays under a rule that charities say penalises the most vulnerable.
It comes after a court case was withdrawn which had been set to challenge the lawfulness of the so-called “hospitalisation rule” through an application for judicial review. Under this rule, a person’s entitlement to the disability benefit Personal Independence Payment (PIP) is suspended if they have received care in a hospital or a similar institution for 28 days or more.
Affected families said they were needed to help care for their disabled relatives in hospital which led to extra expenses during this time. But the government says when somebody is in receipt of long-term NHS in-patient care, it does not pay benefits to stop the taxpayer from paying double.
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Figures obtained by the BBC Shared Data Unit show that thousands of people in Greater Manchester have had their PIP payments suspended in the last three years - and the numbers are increasing. Between February and April 2022, a total of 2140 payments were suspended due to extended hospital stays across the 10 Greater Manchester boroughs.
During the same time period in 2021, 1820 payments were suspended, while in 2020 it was 1470. Trafford has seen the biggest increase of suspensions between the three years with a rise of 66.7 percent, while suspensions in Bolton, Tameside and Wigan rose by 50 percent or more. Oldham saw the smallest increase in suspensions at 28.6 percent.
Critics say the so-called hospitalisation rule particularly affects people with profound and multiple learning disabilities (PMLD) who are more likely to have lengthy hospital stays. They say that a disability does not stop when a person enters hospital, and the costs incurred by family members - often the known carers for the person claiming benefits - are often higher during this time.
Charities said the way the rule was applied to people detained under the Mental Health Act meant they could not benefit from the independence to aid their treatment, to which they were entitled. Learning disability charity Mencap’s head of policy, Dan Scorer, said people with PMLD were “more likely to fall foul of the 28-day rule”.
| Local Authority | Total Suspensions 2020 | Total Suspensions 2021 | Total Suspensions 2022 | Total PIP Cases 2022 | Percentage Change In Total Suspensions 2020 To 2022 |
| Bolton | 150 | 190 | 230 | 16634 | 53.3 |
| Bury | 100 | 110 | 140 | 9742 | 40 |
| Manchester | 310 | 400 | 450 | 32359 | 45.2 |
| Oldham | 140 | 160 | 180 | 13176 | 28.6 |
| Rochdale | 120 | 140 | 180 | 13050 | 50 |
| Salford | 140 | 160 | 190 | 15879 | 35.7 |
| Stockport | 130 | 160 | 180 | 12684 | 38.5 |
| Tameside | 120 | 150 | 180 | 13556 | 50 |
| Trafford | 90 | 130 | 150 | 9257 | 66.7 |
| Wigan | 170 | 220 | 260 | 19736 | 52.9 |
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1470 | 1820 | 2140 | 156073 | |
The loss of financial support could have a detrimental impact on the ability of family members and carers to continue their support, he said. Though the judicial review case had been withdrawn, Mr Scorer said Mencap would continue to work with affected people to “challenge its fairness”.
Campaigners seeking to overturn the “hospitalisation rule” also point to the case of Cameron Mathieson. Cameron was five years old when his Disability Living Allowance, the benefit Personal Independence Payment is replacing, was stopped after he spent more than 12 weeks in Alder Hey Hospital, Liverpool.
Cameron Mathieson’s family fought and won a four-and-a-half-year legal battle which went to the Supreme Court. Judges agreed the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) had been “grossly unfair” when it stopped his payments.
Dad Craig added: "However dedicated or professional the nurses are, there is a yawning chasm between what their best efforts can achieve and what their young and disabled patients require, particularly now as resource and staff shortages are increased deliberately."
Cameron, from Warrington, Cheshire, died in 2012 after suffering from cystic fibrosis and Duchenne muscular dystrophy, among other conditions.
Dan Scorer, head of policy at Mencap, the learning disability charity, said: "We do not agree with the DWP’s claim that when an individual is in hospital that all their needs are met.
"Hospital staff understandably do not know a person when they are admitted and will struggle to understand, for example, how a person who is non-verbal communicates and presents.
"Staff are also working in a highly-pressured environment, often with vacancies on their team, and so cannot provide the level of 1:1 care that can be needed where a person with significant additional needs is staying in hospital.
"It is for this reason that families make such a vital contribution, knowing the person well, being able to interpret their behaviour and communication and advocate for them, as well as meet sensory and other needs. Families maintaining this level of support costs money, yet the benefits system cuts off that financial support after 28 days."
A Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) spokesperson said: “We are committed to ensuring that disabled people get all the support to which they are entitled. It is a long-standing rule that payment of extra costs benefits, such as Personal Independence Payment, is suspended after the first 28 days in a hospital or similar institution, to avoid double provision from public funds.
“While the number of hospitalisation suspensions has gone up so has the number of PIP awards; suspensions still form a very small proportion of the overall PIP caseload.”
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