Part time hospital admission and PIP / ESA

Hi,

I’m in quite a complex situation with my benefits and desperately looking for advice.

I am in the support group for contribution-based ESA and the enhanced rate for both daily living and mobility for PIP. (Would just like to say it was absolutely this website’s resources outlining how to explain how my conditions affect me in a way that was acceptable to DWP that allowed for this result, and I will always be eternally grateful for this website and the work that you do helping people to receive the support they deserve in such a cruel and unfair system).

I am due to go into a 9 month residential mental health treatment at the end of the month, but it is not an acute admission, it’s a therapeutic community (NHS) and the admission has been planned for some time. It is also not full time, everyone goes home at weekends, you just stay at the hospital during the week. Very stupidly, it only dawned on me recently that this would affect my benefits. I have been desperately trying to ask staff what will happen about my benefits once I am admitted since before Christmas, but I kept getting fobbed off and told to wait for the professionals meeting (which happened last Friday) and ask about this then. When I did, I was told not to worry about it, and that staff would help me contact the DWP once I was admitted, and that my PIP would be reduced in line with the number of days I was in residential treatment and the number of days I was at home, and that you get a month’s grace to sort this out.

This didn’t really explain anything, and just made me worry more to be honest. I still have questions which haven’t really been properly answered by anyone:

1) I would’ve assumed it would be the ESA that would be reduced, rather than the PIP, given that PIP is not means tested? (I was getting PIP while I was still working full time). Is ESA unaffected then?

2) Nobody can tell me how much my benefits will be reduced by, and because it’s not a full time hospital admission, I can’t seem to find any advice about this anywhere as it’s not really a typical situation. I’ve seen stuff about 28 days that I don’t fully understand – would the 28 days reset every time I go home for the weekend or be added together across the admission?

A major reason I am worried about all of this, is because I have a mortgage which I am having to pay out of my ESA and PIP as obviously can’t get help with housing costs as not renting. Any reduction to my benefits is going to make things extremely difficult, as I am only just making things work as it is. I live alone, so there is no other income to cover the mortgage. I had already been planning for the fact that I will almost certainly need to sell the flat next year when I have to start paying back the Help to Buy loan plus interest on top of the mortgage as there is no way, unless my health and circumstances drastically change, that I’ll be able to cover these increased monthly payments on ESA and PIP. I was hoping this was something I could put to one side until I finished the treatment and my health was (hopefully) more stable, but it looks as though I might have to address this much more immediately if my benefits are significantly reduced while in the treatment. It’s just such a complex situation with so many different elements to it, which I’m not sure the staff at the hospital I have spoken to fully appreciate when they say not to worry about it until I’m admitted.

The other issue with all of this is that even if I can still pay the mortgage on whatever the reduced amount of PIP/ESA ends up being, obviously I will still be at home at weekends and will need to cover living costs, which I may no longer be able to if everything is going on the mortgage payments.

I’m starting to get very panicked about all of this (as you can probably tell) and it’s feeding into a lot of negative thoughts about not deserving my flat (which is something I felt right from when I got it, even though I was working full time at the time) and just feeling like I should’ve sold the flat as soon as I became too unwell to work (though how I would’ve done this while so unwell and where I would’ve gone, I don’t know).

Anyway, apologies for the long post, but this is really causing a lot of stress and it feels like a lot to sort out in 2 weeks when I have no idea where to start, and staff at the hospital are being extremely blasé about something which could potentially result in me becoming homeless.

Any advice on this would be so, so welcome. Thank you so much.

Thanks so much BIS and Gordon for your help.

I eventually managed to speak to the social worker at the hospital today, but before I saw your responses unfortunately so wasn't very informed when I spoke to her. Basically she wasn't helpful at all, and didn't seem to know about the 28 day thing, or that it it adds up across the whole admission. She just kept saying she couldn't tell me how much my benefits would be reduced by, because everyone gets different amounts so she couldn't compare it with other patients, it is the DWP's job to do the calculations, not hers, and it wasn't her business to know people's financial situations anyway....I said I wasn't expecting her to give me exact figures, but I did think she might know the percentage it is likely to be reduced by given that everyone is at the hospital 5 nights a week and at home 2 nights, so there must be a general idea of how they calculate the reduction, regardless of how much people get, but she couldn't tell me. It's deeply frustrating and upsetting, especially as this was the person that everyone kept directing me to ask and was the person I was told 'dealt with this stuff.' I got the vibe that my situation is a bit of an anomaly and maybe not one they have encountered before. She said some people at the hospital 'don't even get ESA' which made it sound like it was unusual that I did. She suggested calling my mortgage provider and trying to negotiate a lower monthly payment with them for the 9 months I'm in treatment, but without knowing how much the PIP is going to be reduced by, and from when, I don't know what I'm going to be negotiating. This is all incredibly stressful when my mental health is already terrible.

Apologies, I didn't really explain fully the set up, not sure if it makes a difference or not, but it is Monday - Friday lunchtime at the hospital then Friday evening - Sunday evening at home, Sunday night back at the hospital (so 4 nights at the hospital, 2 nights at home each week).

I will try and call DWP tomorrow and try and find out what's likely to happen. I'll also see if I can speak to Citizen's Advice, although I can't imagine I'll be able to get an appointment in the next 2 weeks.

Thanks so much for your help and advice and having a space where people can get help with these things.

Staying overnight Monday/Tuesday, attending for day on Wednesday, staying overnight Thursday/Friday would fit within the rules Gordon stated and add up to no days per week in hospital that count towards the DWP total. If your medical team agree, you could do the first 8 weeks staying 4 nights and then switch to staying 2.

Oh sorry I got that completely wrong because I'm so stressed. It's actually 5 nights at the hospital (Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday) and 2 nights at home (Friday, Saturday). Apologies, I appreciate this mistake has confused things even more.

As far as I know, there isn't any negotiating around the days you stay at the hospital, you have to be there during the week as there is a timetable and occasionally at weekends (you have to spend a weekend there within the first month apparently, and are also meant to stay the weekend before any review appointments.) I also live too far away to travel back and forwards easily, it's quite a complicated journey with multiple transport changes which is going to be difficult enough at weekends (it's a national service which takes people from all over the country, so the hospital isn't local).

I hadn't even thought about the fact that you are expected to stay some weekends every so often until just now, which is obviously going to throw the calculations into disarray even more.

Literally at this point I think I should just go there, deal with whatever happens with the benefits, and if I end up losing my flat and having no money to live on then the hospital are going to have to deal with that because it's not like I haven't asked them for help with this. I'm just done with it now - I tried to ring both DWP and Citizens Advice between various medical appointments today, and couldn't get through to either and then the lines closed. I don't have any appointments tomorrow so will try again, but I'm not holding out much hope for either, so I've given up now and I guess will just have to deal with whatever happens.