Can anybody please help? I have a client whom resides in residential care and is aged 60 in receipt if Pension Credit and has underlined entitlement to DLA care at the middle rate. As we are all aware, when a residential care client spend nights away from the home DLA will pay the DLA care as boarder payments for the time spent away.

There is also guidance DMG Volume 1, Chapter 4 paragraph 04558, that is applicable to Income Support and payments of Severe Disability Premium for short break residential care clients, in short under this guidance the client on Income Support can also have the SDP paid to cover the same period. However after making an application for my client to Pension Credit the application has been refused as Pension Credit state that there is no provision for such application and the DMG does not apply in this instance.

I am currently in appeal stage after a lengthy process and am looking at Article 14 of the European Convention on Human Rights, as it appears that my client is being discriminated against on the grounds of her age.

Does anyone have any suggestions or has anyone come across a case of similar circumstances and what was the outcome?

Any assistance would be very much appreciated.

So what you're saying is that IS can be paid for days at home but pension credit can't. Is that right?

Have a look at the DA regs, schedule 3B, para 5.

It's a bit wordy, but it seems to be that it might be saying, in respect of PC, the same thing as schedule 3 para 3(h), which is the bit that allows payment of IS for days at home. I'm really not that certain though...

There are some differences in the dates that a superseded decision takes effect from in Pension Credit compared to other benefits but the conditions of entitlement for the SDA in Pension Credit are essentially the same (on this point) as they are for the SDP in Income Support.