Those crazy scamps at the Department for Work and Pensions have been at it again!

They have a new practical joke to play on disabled people who go into hospital for treatment.

Anyone on Personal Independence Payment – the benefit for people with disabilities – will have their payments suspended if they go to hospital for more than 28 days.

But in Melanie Forrest’s case, the Department didn’t wait. It docked her two months‘ PIP when she went to hospital for just four days.

And nobody told her!

She would have known nothing about it if she had not checked her bank account and discovered that she had only 47p in it.

She won’t be able to pay her bills on time, and that means her bank will be charging her.

The DWP has admitted wrongly docking Ms Forrest’s PIP and has promised to repay it in full.

But those rascally civil servants won’t be doing anything about the bank charges they’ve saddled her with!

Did I say “rascally”? Did I call them “scamps”? Sorry – those were typos.

I meant utterly irresponsible menaces to vulnerable people they are supposed to protect.

People on benefits – especially disability benefits – rely on these payments to maintain a basic standard of living.

Disrupting those payments for just a small time can be catastrophic, forcing people to choose between food, rent and heating (in cold weather) bills as they struggle to absorb the hit.

But that doesn’t matter to a government department that recently spent £200,000 trying to get out of paying benefits to just seven people.

Their attitude seems to be, “What the hell – it’s only money!”

That’s right – money they hate giving to the people who need it.

A woman was left with just 47p after a blunder meant her benefits were stopped while she was in hospital. Melanie Forrest, 56, was stunned when her Personal Independence Payment (PIP) was suspended for two months, branding it “appalling”. DWP bosses have apologised for the mix-up, which happened because of confusion over dates. Melanie spent four days in hospital for a hip replacement. A stay of more than 28 days halts Pip payments, but DWP officials jumped the gun. Her Employment and Support Allowance was still paid throughout. “They have admitted a mistake with the dates and that they owe me about £600 or £700, which is probably £800 now,” she said. “It’s just appalling.”

Source: Woman left with 47p to live on after DWP axed benefits while she was in hospital – Mirror Online

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