Disability Living Allowance Reform Proposals

The UK government has recently announced that it intends to make far-reaching reforms to Disability Living Allowance (DLA).  The consultation period on the changes closed on 18th February.  The government is proposing that DLA be replaced by a ‘Personal Independence Payment’.  PIP will have two components - mobility (based on a person’s ability to get around) and daily living (based on a person’s ability to carry out other key activities necessary to participate in everyday life). There will only be two rates of each component (currently, DLA has three rates for ‘care’ which is being reformed into ‘daily living’).

Other key changes proposed are:
• people must experience conditions for six months before and be expected to continue to experience conditions for a further six months in order to qualify for the new benefit (including people likely to want to transfer from DLA);
• There are no automatic entitlements, apart from special rules for people who are terminally ill;
• The new benefit will consider aids and adaptations that people seeking the new benefit could use;
• There will be regular reviews of all benefit awards;
• There will be penalties if people receiving the benefit knowingly fail to report a change in their condition.
• Signposting of people to other support will occur.
• An ‘independent healthcare professional’ will be involved in assessing applications.  In most cases, this will involve a face-to-face meeting.

The outcome of the consultation is expected soon, and we will keep members informed on this and on how the changes will affect them.