HUNDREDS of disabled people in Bradford have had their benefits stopped during extended hospital stays under a rule that charities say penalises the most vulnerable.

Under the so-called “hospitalisation rule”, a person’s entitlement to the disability benefit Personal Independence Payment (PIP) is suspended if they have received care in a hospital or a similar institution for 28 days or more.

Affected families have said the funds were needed to help care for their disabled relatives in hospital which led to extra expenses during this time.

The government says when somebody is in receipt of long-term NHS in-patient care, it does not pay benefits to stop the taxpayer from paying double.

In West Yorkshire, Bradford had one of the highest rates of PIP suspensions in the quarter to April 2022, at 460, where there was a total of 29,586 PIP cases in the year ending April 2022.

This was an increase of 48.4 per cent on 2020, when the figure was 310 for the same period.

Regionally the highest level of PIP suspensions was in Leeds at 560, where there was a total of 36,131 cases in the year.

This was followed by Kirklees at 360 PIP suspensions, where there was a total of 22,072 cases in the year.

Critics say the so-called hospitalisation rule particularly affects people with profound and multiple learning disabilities (PMLD) who are more likely to have lengthy hospital stays.

They say that a disability does not stop when a person enters hospital, and the costs incurred by family members - often the known carers for the person claiming benefits - are often higher during this time.

Learning disability charity Mencap’s head of policy, Dan Scorer, said people with PMLD were “more likely to fall foul of the 28-day rule”.

The loss of financial support could have a detrimental impact on the ability of family members and carers to continue their support, he said.

The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) said this “long-standing rule” was “to avoid double provision from public funds”.

It said it had not found any evidence suggesting people with PMLD were disproportionately impacted.

The department maintained that because of rising numbers of people receiving PIP, suspensions “still formed a very small proportion of the overall PIP caseload”.

A spokesperson said the DWP was “committed to ensuring that disabled people get all the support to which they were entitled”.

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