In November 2022, we reported thousands of disabled people had had their benefits paused during extended hospital stays under a rule which charities said penalised the most vulnerable.
It came after a court case was withdrawn which had been set to challenge the lawfulness of the so-called "hospitalisation rule" through an application for judicial review.
Under this rule, a person's entitlement to the disability benefit Personal Independence Payment (PIP) was suspended if they had received care in a hospital or a similar institution for 28 days or more.
Affected families said they were needed to help care for their disabled relatives in hospital which led to extra expenses during this time.
The government said when somebody was in receipt of long-term NHS in-patient care, it did not pay benefits to stop the taxpayer from paying double.
Methodology
We provided figures for the total number of people whose PIP payments were suspended due to spending 28 days or more in a hospital or similar institution for each local authority for the quarter from 1 February to 30 April for the years 2020, 2021 and 2022, so we were comparing the same point in time. For a sense of proportion we also provided the total PIP claims for each local authority for each of those financial years.
As the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions was originally named as the defendant in the application for judicial review, we sourced figures from The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) only and they covered Great Britain.
The through . The total claims data were the DWP鈥檚 figures too and they were obtained from the DWP鈥檚 online Stat-Xplore tool.
For each year and local authority, we provided the ratio of total suspensions due to hospitalisation, to total PIP claims to give a sense of proportion.
For each year and local authority, we also calculated which was the primary disabling condition for people claiming PIP which had the highest number of suspensions due to hospitalisation.
In some cases, several groups had the same number (because the DWP rounded its figures on suspensions) so in those instances, the conditions were presented in a list separated by commas. The number of suspensions for those groups was contained in the corresponding 鈥淢ax鈥� column for that year.
What we found
- The total number of PIP suspensions under the hospitalisation rule in Great Britain increased from 30,860 in the quarter to the end of April 2020, to 45,850 in the quarter to the end of April 2022
- The highest numbers of PIP suspensions were for people with mental health conditions
Get the data
We produced and .
We also produced allowing our regional news partners to easily access information for the local authorities' areas they covered.
Interviews and quotes
- Nicola Clulow (she/her), mother and known carer for Cameron Mitchell (he/him), who had sought a judicial review of the so-called "hospitalisation rule" before the case was withdrawn
- Dan Scorer (he/him), head of policy at Mencap, the learning disability charity
- Jonathan Beebee (he/him), Royal College of Nursing professional lead for learning disability nursing
- Carolin Ott (she/her), the solicitor at law firm Leigh Day which represented Cameron Mitchell in the [now-withdrawn] application for judicial review
- Craig Mathieson (he/him), whose family won a legal battle over Disability Living Allowance in 2015 at the Supreme Court
- Rheian Davies (she/her), head of the legal unit at the mental health charity Mind
- The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP)
- Ken Butler (he/him), welfare rights and policy adviser for the charity Disability Rights UK
- Alex Kennedy (he/him), head of campaigns from the charity Rethink Mental Illness
Partner usage
The Shared Data Unit makes data journalism available to the wider news industry as part of the 大象传媒 Local News Partnership. Stories written by partners based on this research included:
- Andover Advertiser: 14 November 2022
- Barrhead News: 4 December 2022
- Basingstoke Gazette (in print): Hundreds of disabled residents miss out on benefits due to 'hospital rule' 14 November 2022
- Basingstoke Gazette: 14 November 2022
- Bolton News: 4 November 2022
- Bury Times: 2 November 2022
- Cwmbran Life: 8 November 2022
- Daily Record (Scotland): 2 November 2022
- Denbighshire Free Press: 2 November 2022
- Grantham Journal: 2 November 2022
- Greatest Hits Radio/GI Media (East Yorkshire and Northern Lincolnshire): 2 November 2022
- Grimsby Live: 2 November 2022
- Kenilworth Nub News: 2 November 2022
- The Leader: 2 November 2022
- Lichfield Live: 2 November 2022
- The Lincolnite: 2 November 2022
- Lincolnshire Live: 2 November 2022
- Lynn News: 3 November 2022
- Manchester Evening News: 2 November 2022
- Manchester World: 2 November 2022
- Newark Advertiser: 2 November 2022
- Norfolk Live: 4 November 2022
- Oldham Times: 3 November 2022
- Oxfordsire Live: 7 November 2022
- Spalding Today: 2 November 2022
- Stamford Mercury: 2 November 2022
- Teesside Live: 2 November 2022
- Telegraph & Argus (Bradford): 3 November 2022
- Wigan Today: 3 November 2022
- The Gazette (Renfrewshire): 6 November 2022*
The story featured online and as a bulletin piece across 大象传媒 local radio through 2 November 2022.
大象传媒 Shared Data Unit senior journalist Alex Homer carried out two-way interviews to discuss the story on 大象传媒 Radio Wales, 大象传媒 Radio Somerset, 大象传媒 Radio Devon, 大象传媒 Radio Surrey and 大象传媒 Radio Cambridgeshire.
The report made bulletins for 大象传媒 Radio Bristol, 大象传媒 Sussex, 大象传媒 Radio Derby, 大象传媒 Radio Gloucestershire, 大象传媒 Radio Shropshire, 大象传媒 Radio Oxford, 大象传媒 Radio Solent, 大象传媒 Radio Merseyside, 大象传媒 Radio Leicester, 大象传媒 Radio Jersey, 大象传媒 Radio York and 大象传媒 Radio Cumbria.
Other usage
- The Mirror (Opinion): 4 November 2022