Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, whether her Department will assess the potential merits of allowing personal independence payment claimants claiming under terminal illness rules to continue receiving their claim following a stay of longer than 28 days in hospital as is the case for stays of longer than 28 days in hospices.

This Government is committed to supporting the needs of terminally ill claimants and ensuring that the rules around benefit entitlement are applied sensitively and proportionally.

A hospice for the purpose of the Personal Independence Payment Regulations is a hospital or other institution, other than an NHS hospital or institution, whose primary function is to provide palliative care for residents who have a progressive disease in its final stages. Where someone is maintained free of charge while undergoing medical or other treatment as an in-patient in a hospital or similar institution funded by the NHS, payment of (but not entitlement to) Personal Independence Payment (PIP) ceases after 28 days. This is on the basis that the NHS is responsible for the entirety of the person’s disability-related extra costs and to pay PIP in addition would be a duplication of public funds intended for the same purpose. Once someone is discharged from hospital, payment of PIP recommences from the date of discharge.