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Contacting DLA

Daphne
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rightsnet writer / editor

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Total Posts: 3537

Joined: 14 March 2014

DLA has contacted stakeholders about an issue with inappropriate calls to DLA - they say -

Disability Living Allowance helpline numbers are receiving a number of inappropriate calls from customers who are contacting DLA and coming through to an incorrect area. This is causing redirections and confusion, and obviously isn’t a good experience. Customers are telling us that the numbers have been supplied by third party organisations which are not asking customers their age and therefore could be providing incorrect numbers.

DLA have put together a simple slide to share with external stakeholders, this sets out the scale of the issue and lists the correct service lines to call based on date of birth, or if the customer is currently claiming PIP or on the PIP journey.

Slide attached

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Va1der
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Welfare Rights Officer with SWAMP Glasgow

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Joined: 7 May 2019

Suspect this is more about DWP’s lack of search engine optimisation. Searching for ‘contact DLA’ or ‘contact Disability living allowance’ brings up a whole bunch of results that are not the page DWP wants you to land on. Assuming that’s: https://www.gov.uk/disability-benefits-helpline
Of course that site is called ‘Contact the Disability Service Centre’, which isn’t immediately obvious is the correct page.

The top result for ‘contact DLA’ is from northamptonshire.gov.uk, and Google immediately shows the 0800 121 4600. Job done. Or so many people not knowing a bit more about DLA would think. I suspect this issue arises more where the third party is a non-welfare rights organisation, such as housing officers, social work etc.

Paul Stockton
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Epping Forest CAB

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The NHS website has a page referring to “Disability benefits helpline - carers and legal services” (https://www.nhs.uk/services/service-directory/disability-benefits-helpline/N10498630) which has the 0800 121 6400 number.

The fundamental problem, in my view, is that if someone simply wants to know if there is a disability benefit they could claim there is no DWP number to call. They have to know what the benefit is, and to have claimed it, before they can find the right number. The numbers are set up to reflect the way DWP is organised, not customer need.