Caregivers have described suffering from an “avalanche of total stress” due to the government’s “abhorrent” approach to benefit recovery, while official figures revealed the widespread poor health of those caring for their loved ones.
The Department for Work and Pensions has been under fire since The Guardian revealed that tens of thousands of unpaid care workers are being forced to pay back huge sums – and in some cases be prosecuted for fraud – because of “honest mistakes” it could have discovered years earlier.
Dozens of people who care for vulnerable, ill or elderly relatives have described the “devastating” effect of the DWP’s approach, with some saying it had led them to commit suicide.
A woman said her mother became ‘severely depressed, suicidal and self-harming’ after she was ordered to pay back two years of care allowance for mistakenly breaching the income supplement, currently £151 a week, while caring for her father when he suffered a massive stroke.
Another carer, who was forced to pay back £2,100 in care benefits, said she was “made to feel like she was a fraudster”. She added: “I couldn’t eat or sleep. I lost weight. I was on antidepressants. I was terrified that I was going to jail. I’m still traumatized, years later. It’s a terrible system. It feels like a fall.”
A third carer, whose two sons, aged four and nine, have chronic Crohn’s disease, said she was “traumatised” by the DWP’s demands to repay around £5,000.
“I can’t begin to describe the avalanche of utter stress these DWP overpayment letters caused,” she said. “Care allowances and overpayments are damaging, draining and destroying the vulnerable lives of sick and disabled patients and their carers.”
Dr. Siobhan O’Dwyer, associate professor of adult social care at the University of Birmingham, described the government’s approach as “abhorrent” and said it increases the risk of unpaid carers considering or attempting suicide.
She said: “This move by the DWP will leave carers feeling more trapped and less supported, which will only increase the risk of carers thinking about or attempting suicide.”
O’Dwyer, who has studied suicide and homicide among unpaid caregivers for 15 years, said one in three unpaid caregivers have thought about killing themselves because of the emotional and financial strain.
This enormous stress also led some to kill their loved ones, she said, adding that there were around 13 murders or murder-suicides committed by unpaid carers in Britain every year. She added: “I think we may also see more of these deaths in the wake of this action by the DWP.”
It is not known how many caregivers have already died by suicide because caregiving status is not part of the data collected after such a death.
Unpaid carers are only allowed to earn £151 per week on top of the minimum 35 hours of care they provide – equivalent to just 13 hours at the minimum wage – and can be fined if they exceed the limit, even unintentionally, resulting in demands to “To overpayments” to reimburse up to £20,000.
Figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) show that almost half of England’s five million unpaid caregivers report a negative impact on their health due to the strain of caring for a loved one.
One in five unpaid caregivers reported low mental wellbeing, compared to 14.8% of the wider population.
Around one in four report being in “not good health”, compared to fewer than one in five adults who are not providing unpaid care, according to the ONS.
The DWP has been contacted for comment. A spokesperson previously said that carer allowance has risen by around £1,500 for an unpaid carer since 2010. This equates to an increase of around £28 per week, or slightly more than inflation.
They added: “We are committed to fairness in the social security system, with safeguards for the management of reimbursements, while protecting the public purse.
“Claimants have a responsibility to consistently inform DWP of any changes in their circumstances that may affect their award, and it is right that we recover taxpayers’ money where this has not occurred.”
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