Forum Home → Discussion → Universal credit administration → Thread
Hospital in-patients
Hi everybody,
I’m getting UC full service in my area as of the 28th February. I work for a cancer charity and a lot of the patients that I work with are very unwell. I wondering how they are going to make claims for UC? I see a lot of self-employed people who have gone into hospital with one thing are are diagnosed with a blood cancer. Often they are kept in hospital and receive their first cycle of chemotherapy within days. This chemotherapy is very strong and makes them acutely unwell. At present I go to the bedside and complete the clerical ESA1 form and although that can be difficult it is doable. How are hospital in-patients going to make applications? Some people will be in for weeks (and in some cases months).
I get the feeling that I’m not going to like the answer to this but would be grateful for any ideas/input.
Thanks,
Gem
Hi everybody,
I’m getting UC full service in my area as of the 28th February. I work for a cancer charity and a lot of the patients that I work with are very unwell. I wondering how they are going to make claims for UC? I see a lot of self-employed people who have gone into hospital with one thing are are diagnosed with a blood cancer. Often they are kept in hospital and receive their first cycle of chemotherapy within days. This chemotherapy is very strong and makes them acutely unwell. At present I go to the bedside and complete the clerical ESA1 form and although that can be difficult it is doable. How are hospital in-patients going to make applications? Some people will be in for weeks (and in some cases months).
I get the feeling that I’m not going to like the answer to this but would be grateful for any ideas/input.
Thanks,
Gem
think you should look at these threads:
https://www.rightsnet.org.uk/forums/viewthread/11941/ (terminal illness, especially where patient doesn’t know)
https://www.rightsnet.org.uk/forums/viewthread/12341/ (accessing, or not, client’s jouirnals)
https://www.rightsnet.org.uk/forums/viewthread/11063/ (implicit consent)
I would consider referring to the DWP visiting team to visit and take the claim in hospital. You should be able to fax or email a DS1500 to them before the visit if this was appropriate. My understanding is that DWP visiting officers assist clients to make their UC claim over the phone but if this wasn’t possible the ball would be in their court to find a way round this. The referral date would be the date of claim. The visiting officer should also be able to complete the verification of ID at the same time if the patient had enough documentation with them.
Alternatively, you could contact the Single Point of Contact (SPOC) for vulnerable clients at the relevant JCP for their support/advice. Ours has been incredibly helpful.
Thank you so much, this is so useful.
I suppose that if the DWP refuse to send a visiting office to hospital (as I have not known them to do this), then they are responsible of facilitating the claim some how. I just can’t see how this is going to be possible without a clerical form - wifi in the hospital is patchy. At least I know now that I can be firm with them that the onus is on them to find a way to take the claim.
If the DWP visiting team did refuse to do a hospital visit I would be thinking of contacting their MP as a matter of urgency. I don’t think they’ve even considered this scenario when they decided it was digital by default!
If the DWP visiting team did refuse to do a hospital visit I would be thinking of contacting their MP as a matter of urgency. I don’t think they’ve even considered this scenario when they decided it was digital by default!
Yes I will do. I’ve already spoken to our policy guy who has told me that if we do have problems with this then he’s all over it. It’s just so awful that things aren’t in place to deal with this already.
We too are finding that local DWP partnership staff will work hard to bridge the gap, but on a policy basis there should - five years after the UC Regs came in - BE NO GAP!
There is also the problem that it is not just making the claim that is difficult - once someone is on UC, they are bombarded with SMS or email messages telling them to log on to UC etc etc, which would be very hard to handle in this sort of situation.
We keep asking DWP to a/ permit some form of written claim [and find a way to stop the messages] or b/ exercise discretion under Reg 4 of the UC Transitional Provisions Regs 2014 to allow a legacy benefit claim where UC will not work for the claimant.
No response.
The people who invented and imposed UC should have thought about situations like this: clearly, they did not.