Carers Allowance

Hi All,

I'll try and be brief

I suffered a Significant Traumatic Brain Injury in America in 2010, and suffered a stroke on the flight home to UK, the Neurologist on the plane requested an emergency landing in Iceland, where I was resuscitated and hospitalised in Reykjavik for some time.

Went back to work after approx 10 months (Local Government Officer) but after 2 years I had to leave on tier one ill health retirement.

I was 61 then and had no idea about benefits so I went to my local job centre + who I have to admit were very helpful directing me to receive ESA(CB) (Support Group) and advised I apply for PIP. ( Although most of my ESA is taken away as I have a small pension}

Having a 44 year background in law and local government and despite my brain injury and strokes, I was fairly well equipped for what turned out to be a battle with the DWP that lasted 8 months, before I was granted the higher level of care and mobility.

How others manage to go through this tortuous process when they are by virtue of their application not well is beyond me, I was suffering but I knew how to take the fight to them.

I was initially awarded 3 years, and more recently 5 years.

I have acquired several additional problems since, psychologically and physiologically including Polymyalgia Rheumatica, Hemiplegic Migraine Seizures, and continue to suffer TIA's and Chronic Arthritis which strangely enough gives me most pain and difficulties.

Oh, and I have OSA and have to wear a CPAP at night as stop breathing.

I take a plethora of medications which include a high morphine dosage, have several surgeries coming up and have the sinister label of 'reduced life expectancy' in my file, yea we'll see.

Anyway thank you for listening to my tale of woe.

I have now reached the stage where I need more care.

My wife is younger than me and works full time, giving us a small amount of disposable income.

She now has no choice but to consider giving up her job to care for me, so can anybody advise me about the 'care' allowance' and is she eligible, and if so how does she go about applying.

Is there any other help that may be available?

Regards

Lew

Hello Lewis.

The most sensible way of helping you with the Carer's Allowance part of your enquiry is to direct you to a very helpful website (you've possibly already heard of it) - Carersuk.org. since we mainly deal with other benefits (PIP, ESA and DLA mainly).

There are the expected rules about who can apply, the conditions attached to their application and how much they are allowed to earn - at the present moment it is £110 per week before any allowance is affected.The most important consideration is whether the fact of their claiming Carer's Allowance could affect your own income - this is something you need to check carefully. If you read through the information on the site I'm sure you'll soon come to your own conclusion about whether it is worth applying for.

As for any other help, I'm sure you'll have already checked the (local) Government website where you will be able to carry out your own benefits check and see whether there is more financial help available. Turn2Us is also worth a look, as they can advise on various sources of extra income.

Various charities can also help financially, either with grants or equipment, so that's another useful source to check on. I'll leave this open for other members of the forum to add in their own experiences and suggestions.

I'm so very sorry you are having to deal with this awful situation. It's good that you have the knowledge and ability to stand your own corner, but you should not have to face this and neither should your wife. It's both cruel and totally unnecessary.

I hope these suggestions are of some help, and i am sure other members will have ideas and suggestions of their own. If you need any other help, please get back to us.

shelam wrote: Hello Lewis.

The most sensible way of helping you with the Carer's Allowance part of your enquiry is to direct you to a very helpful website (you've possibly already heard of it) - Carersuk.org. since we mainly deal with other benefits (PIP, ESA and DLA mainly).

There are the expected rules about who can apply, the conditions attached to their application and how much they are allowed to earn - at the present moment it is £110 per week before any allowance is affected.The most important consideration is whether the fact of their claiming Carer's Allowance could affect your own income - this is something you need to check carefully. If you read through the information on the site I'm sure you'll soon come to your own conclusion about whether it is worth applying for.

As for any other help, I'm sure you'll have already checked the (local) Government website where you will be able to carry out your own benefits check and see whether there is more financial help available. Turn2Us is also worth a look, as they can advise on various sources of extra income.

Various charities can also help financially, either with grants or equipment, so that's another useful source to check on. I'll leave this open for other members of the forum to add in their own experiences and suggestions.

I'm so very sorry you are having to deal with this awful situation. It's good that you have the knowledge and ability to stand your own corner, but you should not have to face this and neither should your wife. It's both cruel and totally unnecessary.

I hope these suggestions are of some help, and i am sure other members will have ideas and suggestions of their own. If you need any other help, please get back to us.

Thank you shelam, there are some very useful contacts there that I have not been aware of.

I will do some reading and further research, knowledge is power.

I am fortunate that I thrive on confrontation, especially against a bullying and uncaring entity like the KKK, sorry DWP.

As I mentioned I found one or two willing to help, but generally I faced confrontation and inefficiency.

I feel really sorry for some people who will have been broken or even worse by these draconian procedures.

Regards