Response to Northern Ireland secretary announcement

Joan McEwan, Head of Policy and Public Affairs for Marie Curie Northern Ireland, said:

We hope that the provisions brought forward by the Secretary of State will allow the Department for Communities to address the serious issues with the terminal illness rules under Personal Independence Payments (PIP). Despite evidence that the current system isn’t working, and wide support for reform from across the political spectrum and the medical community, change has not been possible because of the uncertain political situation. We hope action can now be taken.

In her statement, the Secretary of State talked about Departments making decisions in ‘the public interest’. There can be no doubt that creating a fairer and more compassionate PIP system for terminally-ill people in Northern Ireland falls into this category.

Background:

Marie Curie has been campaigning to reform the special rules determining eligibility for Personal Independence Payments for terminally-ill people.

There are Special Rules for Terminal Illness under PIP, which allows terminally-ill people to access their payments quickly and without a face-to-face assessment, but only those with a diagnosis of six months or less to live are eligible to apply under these rules.

Experts from across the medical community have said this criteria is too restrictive and that the difficultly in predicting life expectancy for many terminal illnesses means that legitimate claimants are being excluded from applying for PIP under the special rules.

In June an independent review into PIP, which was commissioned by the Department for Communities, recommended that the six month life expectancy criteria determining eligibility under the terminal illness rules be removed.