Personal Independence Payment: Terminal Illnesses

(asked on 5th October 2020) - View Source

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, pursuant to the Answer of 25 September 2020 to Question 90093 on Personal Independence Payment, after how many days on average after making a claim for personal independence payment under Special Rules for Terminal Illness did the 1,740 claimants die who applied under those rules for personal independence payment but prior to her Department making a decision on their claim.


Answered by
Justin Tomlinson Portrait
Justin Tomlinson
This question was answered on 13th October 2020

Personal Independence Payment (PIP) is claimed by people with a range of health conditions and disabilities, many of which are degenerative or life limiting and the Department treats the death of any claimant sympathetically.

Claims made under Special Rules for Terminal Illness (SRTI) are fast tracked. New claims to PIP under SRTI were being cleared in 4 working days on average (median) in April 2020 and reassessments from Disability Living Allowance (DLA) to PIP under SRTI were being cleared in 6 working days on average (median) in April 2020.

The cause of death of claimants to PIP is not collated centrally by the Department. There is no evidence in this data to suggest someone’s reason for claiming PIP was the cause of their death and it would be misleading to suggest otherwise. People claim PIP for various reasons, the majority of which are non-life threatening.

For the 1,740 claimants who died after registering a PIP claim under Special Rules but prior to a decision being made on their case between 1st April 2018 and 30th April 2020, the average (median) number of working days between registering a claim and death was 5 working days.

Notes:

Sources: PIP ADS, Customer Information System

  • These figures include new claims and Disability Living Allowance (DLA) to PIP reassessment claims.
  • If a claimant dies before a decision is made on an outstanding claim, the Department establishes whether the claimant’s representative or next of kin wishes to proceed with the claim. If not, the claim is withdrawn.
  • This is unpublished data from the PIP computer system’s (PIP CS) management information. It should be used with caution and may be subject to future revision.
  • Figures include registrations made from 1st April 2018 – 30th April 2020 and clearances made up to 30th April 2020 (as recorded on the system at 30th April 2020) and claimant deaths from 1st April 2018 – 30th April 2020 (as recorded on the system at 2nd October 2020) and may be subject to retrospection.
  • The latest PIP Official Statistics, including data to 31st July 2020, were published on 15th September 2020. We have provided figures here as at 30th April 2020 for consistency with the original answers to PQ 90093 and PQ 81700.
  • The averages provided are median working days. The median is the middle value if you were to order all the times within the distribution from lowest value to highest value. The median is presented here instead of the mean because the mean can be unduly affected by outlying cases.
  • Median working days are provided to allow comparison with the figure published for all PIP new claims made under SRTI.
  • GB only.

Under the Social Security (Notification of Deaths) Regulations 2012 and s125 of Social Security Administration Act 1992 date of death is provided to the Department for all registered deaths. Additionally, next of kin also provide information on the date of death of an individual and this information is used appropriately in the administration of Departmental benefits.

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