Partiall Capacity Benefit

dahat

After recently seeing a medical assessor it was recommended that my wife go onto this scheme to allow her to return to work in some capacity,with agreement from her own doctor she applied but then issues arose..

Her claim for illness benefit was due to expire on a certain date but her application for PCB was in 3 weeks before her expiry date,after her expiry date came and went she was told that all though she qualifies she now has to get work for 13 weeks before she can receive payment under this scheme.

My questions are..
Can we apply for any payment as now she cannot find work and has no incoming payment?
Can they hold back the approved payment for the reasons that her illness benefit had expired while her application was being processed?

mrsbyrne

This whole illness benefit/invalidity pension/PCB business is such a mess.:(
your wife was only entitled to IB for a maximum of 24 months. After 1 year of IB she should have applied for Invalidity Pension, but nobody told her that:( Invalidity Pension is taking up to 10 months to process:(
She should Apply for the Invalidity Pension and go to the CWO for an SWA while shes waiting for it to be heard. But if you have income she will be means tested against this. Its tough.

Equality

In addition, if she is still sick she should continue to send in her illness benefit certs. This is in order to get credits (not money), as the credits are needed to keep her prsi up to date. If she fails to do this she may find that she does not have enough prsi to get the Invalidity pension. If she feels she is fit to work, she could sign off the illness benefit and apply for unemployment benefit.

dahat

Equality wrote: »

In addition, if she is still sick she should continue to send in her illness benefit certs. This is in order to get credits (not money), as the credits are needed to keep her prsi up to date. If she fails to do this she may find that she does not have enough prsi to get the Invalidity pension. If she feels she is fit to work, she could sign off the illness benefit and apply for unemployment benefit.

But if she applys for unemployment benefit does this affect her PCB approval?
Medically she has been given approval to work some hours and she feels she could do so but her credits are the issue,the whole situation is a bloody mess..We only this morning got a letter to keep sending in certs for credits as you said

Equality

Yes, it might affect the PCB if she applies for unemployment benefit.