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This note relates to an earlier thread discussion.
Changes in the pipeline.
I have been in touch with the Adelphi. They have 2 lists of possible changes. The first list is in draft regulation form, and is awaiting passage through the SSAC in February. The Adelphi preferred not to release the list at present, because it has not had the ok from the relevant minister, and it may change.
The second list is a list of things that they may or may not propose to amend the rules about. Action on this list depends on staff resources. Again, this list is not in shape for publication, but if I discover anything further, I will post the information.
Hospital and temporary care anomaly
There is an anomaly in the rules for couples where one is in hospital versus one in temporary residential care. If the one in hospital loses their AA/DLA, they are still treated as having it for the purposes of the couples PC claim, but this does not apply to couples where one is in temporary residential care. I raised this with the Adelphi, but they do not seem to see this as very much of an issue. The view taken is that the scenario of a couple being detrimentally affected when one goes into temporary care, will not in practice occur very often. They say that in such cases, respite care is normally carefully planned to take into account the possible loss of AA/DLA. If such a loss did happen, the Adelphi hopes the relevant Local Authority (LA) would take this into account in terms of the needs of the person not in care (when the LA is calculating the care cost contribution etc). They speculated the LAs may have been sent advice from the DoH to this effect. It would appear that the anomaly is not high up the second list for changes, but again I will post news of any developments
Steve
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