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Teenagers with incurable conditions are among hundreds a week being stripped of disability benefits after their 16th birthdays. Nearly a third of those who received Disability Living Allowance (DLA) in childhood had claims for Personal Independence Payment (PIP) rejected when trying to move to the adult benefit, BBC analysis has found.
Disability charity Scope said a “complex, adversarial and difficult to navigate” system contributed to the rejections. With widespread benefits reform proposals expected within weeks, Prime Minister Keir Starmer called the current system “unsustainable, indefensible and unfair”.
The conditions most likely to result in a refused claim were those that may be managed more successfully by an adult than a child, like diabetes or asthma, experts said. But among those to have had claims rejected since PIP’s introduction in 2013 are thousands living with life-changing conditions including cancer, blindness, psychosis, deafness and epilepsy.
Holly Crouch, 21, from East Sussex, said the decision by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) had left her feeling “like a burden” when “nothing changed but my age”. She had been refused PIP when she applied as a teenager, despite providing evidence from specialists saying she was at risk of sudden, life-threatening epileptic seizures.
A recent Resolution Foundation report found the number of young people in receipt of disability benefits falls significantly between the ages of 15 and 17. The think-tank said the failure to qualify – or apply for – PIP was leaving many “facing a financial cliff-edge” as they approached adulthood.
Fightback4Justice, which advocates for disabled people in the welfare system, has called for the process to be more transitional. Its founder, Michelle Cardno, said: “Young people are being treated as adults from the day they reach 16, when most do not understand the system.”
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