Carers allowance refusal

Cb9

Hi, I applied for carers allowance for my dad in April and today received a letter saying I don't qualify because "although my dad may require some assistance with certain tasks he does not appear to require frequent assistance throughout the day with normal bodily functions." and "I have not provided sufficient evidence to prove that my dad satisfies the full time care and attention requirements of the scheme."

I know that the next step is requesting a review but I'm not sure how to go about it, I know I should write a letter detailing everything I do for him on a daily basis but getting the sufficient evidence from his GP might be hard as my dad is bedridden most of the time and hasn't been to his GP in over 1 year (his health has deteriorated a lot over that year).

I've made appointments over the last year for my dad to see his GP but my dad says he's in too much pain to go, It's a miracle if he ever goes to any other appointments (Dentist/Hospital) as he can barely get out of bed most of the time. I might be able to get him to go with me to his GP and talk to his GP about his issues but would a letter from his GP count as sufficient evidence?

Also I am currently on Supplementary welfare allowance and am wondering if I will continue to get it during the review and or appeal if it comes down to it.

Any help at all is appreciated.

gordongekko

Jesus the first thing to do is get your dad seen by a medical professional. You shouldn't have left him in pain for a year

august12

Cb9 wrote:

I've made appointments over the last year for my dad to see his GP but my dad says he's in too much pain to go, It's a miracle if he ever goes to any other appointments (Dentist/Hospital) as he can barely get out of bed most of the time. I might be able to get him to go with me to his GP and talk to his GP about his issues but would a letter from his GP count as sufficient evidence?

If he can't make it to the doctor, would you make sure the doctor will come to the house or the very least he should have is regular visits from public health nurse.

MarkR

Call your local gp, and see can they arrange a house call. It may cost something, but you should really get someone to examine him.

njs030

Yes he needs to be seen by his doctor. Have you asked them to make a house call?

Cb9

gordongekko wrote: »

Jesus the first thing to do is get your dad seen by a medical professional. You shouldn't have left him in pain for a year

I haven't left him in pain for a year, he's been seen by doctors at our local hospital loads of times and they haven't been able to do much other than give him new appointments for new departments of the hospital, he has chronic pain syndrome and a lot of other issues.

He's been sick since before I was born although nowhere near as bad as now, my mam took care of him until she had a brain aneurysm in 2008, nearly died, and is in a nursing home now. My oldest brother was taking care of him until he had to move and take care of me so I wouldn't end up in care. When I turned 18 I moved back home to help another brother take care of him, now that brother has a baby and isn't capable of caring for our dad.

I can't physically force him to go anywhere, I try as hard as I can to get him to appointments but out of every 10 appointments he refuses to go to 9 of them.

august12 wrote: »

If he can't make it to the doctor, would you make sure the doctor will come to the house or the very least he should have is regular visits from public health nurse.

His GP office has 2 GPs, one who treats them at the clinic and one who is available for house calls. I've talked to my dad about house calls but my dad says he's in too much pain to deal with it right then and doesn't want anybody seeing him in that state and promises he'll go when he feels better. I've tried calling ambulances but he says he's in too much pain and just wants to sleep for a while.

Cb9

Just to add right now as I'm typing this, I've already made several appointments for him(as I said me has multiple issues and needs to be seen by different hospitals and different departments of those hospitals for different things), I'm not planning on leaving him in bed to rot. He has made progress on multiple issues in the last 3 months (like I said he does go to some appointments just very rarely) and I have a plan on which issues need immediate help and which issues to get help for after.

august12

Cb9 wrote:

Just to add right now as I'm typing this, I've already made several appointments for him(as I said me has multiple issues and needs to be seen by different hospitals and different departments of those hospitals for different things), I'm not planning on leaving him in bed to rot. He has made progress on multiple issues in the last 3 months (like I said he does go to some appointments just very rarely) and I have a plan on which issues need immediate help and which issues to get help for after.

This is more serious than most of us here thought, you need as much if not more help than your father, get the public health nurse out and get a care plan in place,

njs030

Cb9 wrote: »

Just to add right now as I'm typing this, I've already made several appointments for him(as I said me has multiple issues and needs to be seen by different hospitals and different departments of those hospitals for different things), I'm not planning on leaving him in bed to rot. He has made progress on multiple issues in the last 3 months (like I said he does go to some appointments just very rarely) and I have a plan on which issues need immediate help and which issues to get help for after.

That's good op.
So you have letters stating the dates of those appointments?
Get copies of those and get him to either let the GP do a home visit or allow you to take him to the surgery and get an updated doctors report and send them all in.
Write a day in the life type letter too and send that in with your appeal.

Cb9

august12 wrote: »

This is more serious than most of us here thought, you need as much if not more help than your father, get the public health nurse out and get a care plan in place,

notjustsweet wrote: »

That's good op.
So you have letters stating the dates of those appointments?
Get copies of those and get him to either let the GP do a home visit or allow you to take him to the surgery and get an updated doctors report and send them all in.
Write a day in the life type letter too and send that in with your appeal.

Thank you both for the advise, It's very helpful I talked to my dad and he said he'd try to make the GP appointment and if he can't that he'll let me get a house call for him, and I can talk to the main GP at the clinic and get more documents about recent hospital stays and visits. I brought up the public health nurse with him and he said we will go over a plan over the weekend and call the nurse next week.

Really, thanks for the help with this. I'll call the GP on Monday and get the soonest appointment available and send in the carers review request.

Cushie Butterfield

You need to get as many official help/support services on board with this as possible, not only to help with your Carers Allowance application but more importantly for both your & your Dad's physical & mental wellbeing.

I suggest you start with your local Community Welfare Officer. You're in receipt of SWA so you know where they're located. They're not just there to administer payments, they also at the very least should be able to advise you how best to approach things (not just your Carers Allowance appeal) as regards any other practical support that's available.

You could also make an appointment with the Social Work Dept of one of the hospitals that he attends. They could liaise with their counterparts in the other hospitals. The very least you could expect from this would be supporting letters from them to assist in your appeal, but I'd also expect them to offer further help & advice.

The aim would be to get everyone involved in an official capacity: GP, Social Workers & Community Welfare Officer, not only with your appeal but more importantly your welfare & your Dad's welfare going forward.

njs030

Perhaps when you see the nurse they could arrange for an occupational therapist to come out to visit your dad too.
They are great for helping him and you work out a plan to get more from his life and find things he enjoys and can do. So even if he can't get out of bed what can he do to make his day more enjoyable, reading, artwork, that kind of thing.

The nurse can also help you with practical matters like if he needs a shower chair, if you have stairs they could help get one of those stair chair things installed and so on.
They are helpful in a number of practical ways so really do try and get a referral from the doctor and I'd also suggest perhaps making a separate GP appointment for yourself and ask for a referral to counselling, it's not easy being a carer for a relative and sometimes it's good to have a non-judgemental person to talk to.

august12

notjustsweet wrote:

The nurse can also help you with practical matters like if he needs a shower chair, if you have stairs they could help get one of those stair chair things installed and so on. They are helpful in a number of practical ways so really do try and get a referral from the doctor and I'd also suggest perhaps making a separate GP appointment for yourself and ask for a referral to counselling, it's not easy being a carer for a relative and sometimes it's good to have a non-judgemental person to talk to.

Agree with this, public health nurse will put the ball rolling, will put plan in place and guide you with regard to support services he needs, once you have this in place, you will be in a better position to appeal your care allowance, if you have to appeal within a certain time frame, maybe send a letter with whatever detail you currently have and you could forward additional as and when you receive it.

When you applied, did your Dads GP fill out his section? If his GP is aware of your circumstances this would have been made clear in the application. It's not unusual for the first application to be refused. There should be details of how to appeal with that refusal. As others have said, get your Public Health Nurse out. Don't be fobbed off. You and your dad deserve better.

Kikixx

Cb9 wrote: »

Hi, I applied for carers allowance for my dad in April and today received a letter saying I don't qualify because "although my dad may require some assistance with certain tasks he does not appear to require frequent assistance throughout the day with normal bodily functions." and "I have not provided sufficient evidence to prove that my dad satisfies the full time care and attention requirements of the scheme."

I know that the next step is requesting a review but I'm not sure how to go about it, I know I should write a letter detailing everything I do for him on a daily basis but getting the sufficient evidence from his GP might be hard as my dad is bedridden most of the time and hasn't been to his GP in over 1 year (his health has deteriorated a lot over that year).

I've made appointments over the last year for my dad to see his GP but my dad says he's in too much pain to go, It's a miracle if he ever goes to any other appointments (Dentist/Hospital) as he can barely get out of bed most of the time. I might be able to get him to go with me to his GP and talk to his GP about his issues but would a letter from his GP count as sufficient evidence?

Also I am currently on Supplementary welfare allowance and am wondering if I will continue to get it during the review and or appeal if it comes down to it.

Any help at all is appreciated.

Hi I’m just wondering what the outcome was for you as I have sent more information of for a review?

Cb9

Kikixx wrote: »

Hi I’m just wondering what the outcome was for you as I have sent more information of for a review?

Hi the review was denied as again they said the would need more medical evidence, I applied for an oral hearing appeal afterwords as i heard it would be better than a written appeal due to lack of medical evidence and am still awaiting a date for that.

I sent for review on 11/08/2017 and received a reply in November, I sent the oral appeal request on 17/11/2017 and received a reply that the appeals office was requesting documents from the social welfare office regarding my application and that they would contact again afterwords.

Sorry I can't be much help, from what I've read of other peoples stories the waiting time for reviews seems to vary a lot.