Care home residents and benefits

I thought I’ll tell you about my experience of assisting vulnerable care home residents who do not have adequate support from social care services with their benefits.

About a year ago I was asked to attend to a resident of a small private care home for people with severe MH issues.
I have initially assisted one client but having offered benefit checks, I have gradually discovered that none of the 6 residents were receiving relevant benefits, like PIP or correct level of benefits.
Constant staff turnover at social services, lack of appointees or corporate appointeeship, lack of expertise from a private landlord, complexity of Universal Credit, lack of explicit consent from clients who lacked capacity- all this resulted in none of the residents receiving the right level of benefits; UC without LCWRA or without housing element, no PIP or inadequate rates of it, DL component not awarded due to confusion about sheltered accommodation, registered care home etc.
It took me a just over a year to sort everyone out.
Total gained: £88,614.50 for current gains (12 months) and £30,200.58 in various backdates.
All together the care home residents have received and will received for next 12 months £118,815.08
Makes me wonder though; how many vulnerable care home residents are out there, with no one to look after their affairs.
Lack of investment in social care services seems to be not just a hospital bed-blocker but also a benefit blocker. If my clients had a good and consistent social worker, none of this would have happened.

I submitted it to EWS and posting her, in hope to gain awareness if someone is looking for an idea for a income maximisation project. Hit your local care homes, you won’t miss!

Fantastic work Jo!

But, like you say, no doubt huge numbers out there also missing out…