SDLP deputy leader Nichola Mallon has called on the Department for Communities to follow Scotland and change the definition of terminal illness used in the Personal Independence Payment (PIP) process to make it fairer for terminally ill people living here. The MLA said: “At the minute a person can only apply for PIP under the fast-tracked Special Rules if they have been diagnosed with no more than 6 months to live.
“Terminally ill people clinically diagnosed with 7 months or even one year to live don’t qualify for this swifter process and as a result are left to endure intrusive face-to-face assessments and wait several months for their claim.
“No one with a terminal illness should be spending the little time they have left going through this stress. Not only is this unfair but it also denies people the best quality of time they have left.
“This has been recognised in Scotland, where the Government has backed a call by medical professionals to remove the 6 month time limit and allow a clinical diagnosis of terminal illness to suffice for benefit claimants.
“This move towards a definition of terminal illness based on clinical need, rather than any time restricted understanding of life expectance is the right one andI have urgently written to the head of the Department for Communities calling for the same fairness and dignity to be afforded to terminally ill people here.
“Terminally ill people need these changes made now.
“They do not have the luxury of waiting until a government is eventually formed here,” added the SDLP deputy leader.
