Sickness on UC

[OlympicProcrastinator]

Can anyone share their experience please? The UC website is not clear enough.

We both work full time and receive UC toward the cost of childcare nothing else.

DH works in heavy manual industry and has sustained a shoulder injury. He may be off for a total of 3-4 weeks.

UC website says he needs to provide a sick note for the first 14 days but after that what happens? Is our claim for childcare be stopped?

Then I’ll lose my job as I won’t be able to work if he then has to wait for some fit assessment before we get childcare costs. He doesn’t get paid if he doesn’t work unfortunately, no sick pay.

Is that what happens? Will we lose everything because he’s off for over 2 weeks?

TIA

Can you just class it as unpaid leave?

I don’t know, I have no idea I was wondering if anyone has been through similar?

Firstly you don't just get Uc for childcare and nothing else- Uc is made up of different elements and then reduced by wages so you have elements in there for yourself and your partner and children also. You may only have become eligible for it when you had childcare costs. This is important because even if childcare element was removed , if your dh had no earnings in the longer term you would likely still get some UC as on your claim as a minimum you would still be left with couples and childrens elements and rent element if you rent.
If your dh suddenly has no earnings then you will get more Uc as there will be less deductions for earnings. For each pound you lose with him having no earnings, your UC will rise by 55p .He will need to submit sick notes though. I would assume that if it is just temporary absence form work then childcare element will continue. If he has zero hours for a whole assessment period then he may be called in for an appointment with a work coach. Is he self employed or something?

You need to get Fit Notes from your GP until your husband can return to work.
If he's off for more than 28 days they send you the UC50 which is a joy to complete, about how he is affected by his illness.

In the worst case scenario that childcare element stopped as both of you need to be working to claim it, then would your dh be fit enough to look after the children or are they so young they need lifting etc? I think they must give some leeway to account for temporary sickness/ injury.

It’s not that it’s just we would lose our places for them. They are in wraparound care and holiday club and we needed to save £1000 upfront to pay for it then claim it back through UC. We could not pay it up front again or even be guaranteed those spaces should we lose them. And he couldn’t go back to work until we had them.

And I was being sarcastic about the UC50.
It's a nightmare to fill in.

I think there must be some kind of run on of childcare element even if both parents not working, he is just off on the sick, he is still employed.

No not self employed. Just paid for the hours he does.

That is really helpful thank you. I just pay childcare with it so didn’t really think it was made up of different elements. He won’t be out longer than 4 weeks but according to the UC website they only accept a temporary period of sickness for 14 days.

Yeah I got that. I doubt anything to do with UC is fun. It was only easy for me as I only claimed for childcare (even if they did make it up of other elements) so I only give them receipts for that each month.
Ive heard if you are out of work or disabled they are utterly horrendous.

It’s a very long time ago now, and wasn’t universal credit, but I was signed off sick for a month and had to return to work after only two weeks as we’d have otherwise lost our nursery places as we couldn’t afford it on statutory sick pay and there was no help. Losing your nursery places and thus not being able to work easily afterwards didn’t seem to figure in their calculations.

Did he hurt himself at work? Surely they can’t not pay him if the injury was at work?

While he's getting statutory sick pay (ie up to 28 weeks) he'll be deemed to be in work for the purposes of the childcare costs element

https://www.litrg.org.uk/tax-guides/childcare/universal-credit/who-can-claim-childcare-element-universal-credit

He's not getting any pay though?

Oh yeah, sorry I missed that!

Op I would double check he's not entitled to SSP, as if earning over a certain amount on a regular basis ( he will meet this criteria if full time ). Seems odd he's getting no SSP.

Is he on a zero hour contract? Why can't he get ssp?

It’s a tricky one because the injury is an old injury from a work accident that he received compensation for. And it didn’t happen at his current job. Doing heavy manual work exacerbates it but try telling a man in his late 40’s who’s been in his industry his entire working life to go into an office isn’t that easy.

He will be forced to before too long I’m sure.

Isn’t that like £100 a week? I’ll get him to claim if need be but doubt it would touch the sides of childcare costs unfortunately.

I don’t think so because he gets holiday pay but no sickness pay and only paid for the hours he works. Maybe that is the same thing?

Yes but for the purposes of UC it counts as being in work.

Got you. Just looked it up. I’ll get him to claim that then.

Very helpful thank you.

Good luck, OP. I would be so happy if others were not now forced to take the horrible choice I had to, of returning to work while still sick because of the fear of losing my childcare. The lack of support for working parents is shocking.

SSp is something his employer should be paying him, not something he claims himself.

And if he's not entitled to it, his employer has to issue a form SSP1, verifying that he's not entitled to it and why.