CA claims not being processed

Hi - We are coming across an issue where Claims for underlying entitlement for Carers Allowance are not being processed, following the death of the claimant.

Our Macmillan Officer has been following up on cases, where there have been pension age couples, both in receipt of DLA/AA and we have helped them apply for underlying carers, to help them achieve double carers, double SDP/SDA. Then one of the couple has died, and instead of seeing the claim through, Carers Allowance appear to have just stopped processing the claim.

We have tried speaking to the Carers Allowance Unit but they are refusing to speak to us and will not use implicit/explicit consent.

Just wondered if anybody else is coming across issues like this and if you have found a way to escalate them?

I can raise this via the stakeholder’s forum - will let you know when I hear anything

Had a reply from DWP -

The issue regarding recognising MacMillan and other stakeholders as trusted partners of the DWP is being addressed with strengthened instructions for our telephony agents around providing information to third parties, with reminders sent out to our G4S colleagues of the implicit consent process to follow.

It is already CA policy to fast-track CA claims where the person being cared for is terminally ill but that is dependent upon us being able to identify those circumstances at the outset.

We are at the initial stages of looking at changes to fast tracking terminally ill claims in CA and we are engaging with our key stakeholders re feasibility.

The Carers Allowance Team has asked myself to obtain details of the case so we can look into this (names, NINO’s and addresses).

Can you provide these at all?

If you can email/DM me any details I can send them up so they can get looked into - thanks :)