Carers Allowance Digital Service

Date: Sunday, October 30th 2016
Categories: All Leicestershire

With Carer's Allowance, you could get £62.10 a week if you care for someone at least 35 hours a week and they get certain disability benefits. You don’t have to be related to, or live with, the person you care for. Find out more in this handy guide from Carers UK

The Carer’s Allowance Digital Service has been available since October 2013. It's a simpler, clearer and faster way to make a claim or report a change of circumstances. The service receives excellent feedback, with customer satisfaction consistently over 90%.

Some benefits of using the Digital service to make a claim:

- Available 24 hours a day 7 days a week

- Arrives immediately at the Carers Unit once submitted

- Can be used on a mobile phone or tablet

- Has significantly less questions than the paper claim

- Does not require a signature or a password

- Has mandatory questions to ensure carers provide the information needed to pay claims quickly

- Has helpline numbers and help text if carers need to clarify questions

- Does not need to be printed or saved

- Is available in Welsh

What happens after the claim is submitted?

Claimants can request an email notification to confirm that the application has been submitted. The Carer’s Allowance Unit will start processing the claim and will write to the disabled person to let them know a claim by someone caring for them has been made.

How long will it take to make the claim?

The Carer's Allowance Unit regularly reviews the questions to ensure they only ask for the information they need. The time to complete the online claim has been reducing as they do this and average time to complete is now around 24 minutes.

What if the carer needs to take a break whilst making the claim online?

You will not be timed out for 90 minutes, once you have started to complete the digital claim form, meaning that you should be able to take a break and then return to complete. You will get 90 minutes to complete each page of the application.

What if you need some help?

There are help guides and eligibility questions right up front to help you. Remember, you'll need to make sure the disabled person you care for is in receipt of one of the qualifying benefits, before you make your claim for Carer's Allowance.