Terminal illness as a change of circumstances during a Carer Support Payment award

Where a carer or the person they care for receives a terminal illness diagnosis and is awarded a disability benefit under SRTI or SREL during an ongoing Carer Support Payment award, the carer can switch to receiving payments weekly in advance if they are being paid four weekly in arrears.

Carer or cared for person no longer terminally ill

A client may receive a change in their prognosis from a medical practitioner that they are no longer terminally ill, or this may happen to the person they care for. If the client informs us that this is the case, this may affect their Carer Support Payment award. 

 Where they have been awarded Carer Support Payment with no past presence test and they would now fail the test if this was applied, their Carer Support Payment will need to be ended until they have been present in the Common Travel Area for 26 of the past 52 weeks. If they were awarded Carer Support Payment with no past presence test but now have 26 weeks of past presence in the Common Travel Area, we can continue to pay Carer Support Payment to them.  

There is no requirement to stop paying the client weekly in advance where it is confirmed that they or the person they care for is no longer terminally ill. They can continue to receive weekly in advance payments if they wish to. 

Carer or cared for person dies

Normal processes apply where a terminally ill Carer Support Payment client dies during an ongoing award. Where the person being cared for dies, Carer Support Payment can continue to be paid for up to 8 weeks in the normal way.