claiming DLA when still caring for someone else

I have claimed CA for several years having cared for both my parents. My mother died so that left Dad. He is now 81 and in relatively poor health and of course that meant that if he were to die I would be at the back of the dole queue with little prospects of finding work due to out of date work skills. So.. given the lengthening dole queues, I decided to try avoid that position by going self employed ..working part-time(30 hrs)around my caring responsibilities. Unfortunately after 10 months of doing that fairly successfully, I suffered a stroke-like episode and the upshot of that is after a further 7 months of tests etc I have been diagnosed with this serious neurological problem.

Dave wrote:

the problems you have and could have are not nice but dla was never supposed to be income but extra funds


the postion you have set out, makes me think you should be looking at ESA and its possible that if your un lucky are are very sick you would get in the support group so be btter off than getting CA, and from that postion you would have a case of getting dla too


did you claim CA so as not having to claim JSA ?

Sooty told us he is getting tax credits. If these are working tax credits not child tax credits, he may well not be better off on ESA than continuing with his wages + tax credits + CA. It would be a good idea to get a better-off calculation from a welfare adviser.

There is no need to wait until doing that before claiming DLA. The criteria for DLA and ESA are different.

Sooty, I didn't see your post when I typed mine. I assume from what you say that you're no longer working, in which case, it does make sense to explore all the benefits you may be entitled to, including ESA.