Anyone else no longer eligible for hospital transport despite disability?

[whitesunnyblossom]

I'm disabled and have to attend lots of hospital appointments, not only related to my disability, but related to cancer and other things. I am not allowed to drive any longer due to my disability.

I have previously used hospital transport to take me to various hospitals, including some about 50 miles away. But when I phoned up today, to book transport for next week, I was advised that they have changed the criteria and because I can manage to walk from the hospital entrance to the department with a walking stick, but don't need assistance, I am no longer eligible for hospital transport. (I can only walk about 200 metres, so can't walk to the bus stop etc.

I do use a wheelchair on occasion, but I don't use it if I know I'm just going to the hospital and can walk as far as the department I need to get to.

So I will have to get taxis etc. Apparently if I'm on certain benefits, I could claim the cost back, but although I'm by no means rich, I'm not on pension credit or any of the other qualifying benefits.

Not sure what I'm hoping to achieve by this post, but I just wanted to vent.

Anyone else in the same position?

Sorry op i have no experience of this, but it just sounds awful. Yet more evidence of how the most vulnerable in society are having essentials cut which would otherwise enable us to live a dignified happy life.

Can you appeal the decision at all?

I'm sure that the benefits bashers on this site will be delighted to hear that your funding is being pulled. I think it's disgraceful, sorry OP

I don't think I can appeal it, but if my disability gets worse (which it will as it is progressive), then in another year or so, I might need to get someone to push me in a wheelchair from the car park to the department I am visiting, which would make me eligible for transport.

I think for now, I will just to call on all the people I know to drive me 50 miles each way for MRI scans etc.

Have you tried any local charities? Where I live my BiL has just started volunteering for a charity which supplies a van/ambulance and a companion for patients with no transport. Just a thought

in the area that I work in the criteria for hospital transport was tightened really significantly quite some time ago and you wouldn’t meet it. I know that doesnt help you, but just to let you know it’s not uncommon. As someone else has suggested, I’d look for local charities to see if they can help. Maybe speak to the social prescriber at your GP surgery if they have one.

I had this happen to me. I took transport to a far off hospital (not my choice) to get fitted with a 24hr heart monitor as a side effect of my cancer treatment and autoimmune disease treatment is sudden heart failure so I need monitoring. But the day I was meant to return the monitor, transport rang me to say my transport had been cancelled because it wasn’t for cancer treatment itself and as I was mobile, I could find my own way to this far off hospital I had been sent off to.

I explained to the rep and the manager that I am banned from driving for medical reasons. That a taxi would cost over £100 which I do not have. That the heart consultant and monitoring is a direct result of cancer treatment causing a high risk of heart failure when combined with my auto immune condition. I explained there was no public transport I could take to get to this far off hospital that I had not chosen but been ordered to go to due to the rarity of my heart condition. I asked if I could drop the heart monitor off at my local GP and they then arrange to have the results sent to the consultant and was laughed at.

The manager was really nasty. The rep seemed in shock to have to cancel my transport. I could hear her calling me all sorts behind him in the background.

I called the hospital cardiac investigations department to explain I would not be able to return the 24 hour heart monitor and to see if they can help. I had signed a promise to them that I’d owe over £2k if I lost the monitor as it’s NHS property, so I had to get it to them somehow. The supervisor there was enraged and passed it to her manager. Her manager then called transport and told them to knock it off and I was issued with a new transport appointment although by then it was a day later than it was previously.

I thanked the supervisor when I was at the hospital the next day and she said no problem, have had all kinds of issues with transport being wrongly refused ever since it was moved from the ambulance service to contractors.

So, call the doctor or hospital you have your appointment with, they can escalate and order the transport company to stop the wrong refusals.

I would speak with PALS at your local hospital and say that this could affect your care owing to the costs. Ask them to look at your case and the criteria, mention it’s a condition only likely to get worse and that you have some really bad days.
We had a patient very similar situation where I work in hospital admin and they had made a mistake. It does happen but please challenge it.

They are tightening up the criteria all over. Do you have a Dial A Ride type of service? You might be able to use it one way and get a taxi back.

Some people on a low income can still be eligible for the Healthcare Travel Costs Scheme without being on benefits. You can complete the HC1 form to see if you are eligible for a HC2 or HC3 certificate.

You can see the national non-emergency patient transport guidance here.

I'm so sorry to hear that a lot of you have had similar issues.

We do have a local charity that offers volunteer car drivers to take you to hospital appointments etc and I have used them sometimes in the past. My next plan is to rin them up to see if they are able to source a driver for me. You do have to pay them, but it is only 45p per mile, which is cheaper than a taxi, although I have a few appointments at the hospital 50 miles away, which does happen, it could easily mount up to say £200 per month. But, as they rely on volunteers and they cannot get enough volunteers for all the people that would like a lift, they cannot always accommodate.

I'm not going to be eligible for benefits as I get a full state pension, as does my husband and we have some savings. (Although £200 per month would quickly eat into those, as we are not mega rich).

I can ask friends and family for a lift sometimes, but family members that have cars and can drive also have full time jobs and whilst they would take annual leave for an emergency, I cannot expect them to use all their annual leave for my numerous appointments. Friends tend to be of a similar age to me and either like me, they cannot drive for medical reasons, or due to their age, they are no longer confident to drive except for short local journeys.

I think I will just try and get by for the next few months with hopefully a lift from the local volunteer car service and if not. get family to take annual leave. Then when I next have an appointment with the consultant for my disability, I will ask him if there is anything he can suggest. I don't have much faith in my GP offering anything constructive.

Thanks everyone for the suggestions and links.

I wanted to check whether you are eligible to claim attendance allowance? I assume you are over state pension age? Might be worth investigating. If you can claim it then it’s worth looking again at claiming pension credit as having AA means the rules are more generous. Also you can still have savings the first £10000 is ignored and anything over that is taken into account in the calculation but there is no cut off point. Also if you can claim PC even if it’s only a few £ then you are entitled to full council tax reduction. This applies even if your savings are over £16000. It’s a bit complicated but not difficult to claim try your local citizens advice or age uk . Hope that helps.

@whitesunnyblossom please make a claim for Attendance Allowance. It is not means tested at all and despite the misleading name you do not need to have an attendant/ carer to claim.

I’m a retired community nurse and I have just helped my father in law make a successful claim.

I used to do this as part of my job so perhaps find the forms easier than many people.

If I can be of any assistance do feel free to message me.

Otherwise I would definitely recommend getting assistance from somewhere (Fightback4justice, Age UK, Benefits and Work all have online guides) with the forms because success is related to how you word the facts of your disability.

You need to absolutely spell it out with examples and don’t be afraid of repeating yourself in their highly repetitive form.

I’m disabled myself and sometimes use hospital transport, sometimes my local voluntary car scheme.

Costs can certainly mount up.

It's being pulled for SEND transport as well for kids. Some hard times ahead I think.

Thanks for the suggestions. I'm not entitled to attendance allowance as I get PIP and you can't get both. Although I am over state pension age, the PIP was awarded when I was below state pension age and continues to be paid still.

Fortunately my local volunteer car service have been able to source a volunteer to take me to my next appointment.

I'm fortunate enough to be in a position where paying £50 for a volunteer car driver to take me to an appointment doesn't mean I have to worry if I can feed myself for the week. I'm not wealthy, but I'm not going to be thinking how the hell I'm going to afford £50 per appointment.

Sorry to hear about the funding for SEND children's transport being pulled too.

I suppose what I'm trying to say is that it's not the cost of paying for a volunteer car service that bothers me, it's more the worry that if they can't accommodate me due to limited numbers of volunteers, then I'm going to really struggle to get to appointments 50 miles away (at a guess, a taxi there and back would cost around £250) and if I cancel at the last minute because the volunteers is sick or something, then I'm wasting valuable appointments.

If you get PIP and you're over state pension age and in receipt of your pension, you may be entitled to Pension Credit.

The qualifying amount allowed is increased when you get PIP.

I get all three. It's worth you ringing the Pension Credit line to ask. I get a small private pension too, and I still get Pension Credit.

I have family members in the same position. My family do a mixture of paying a lot for taxis, ask friends and family members, or use charities that provide hospital transport.

Unfortunately where I work they have tightened the illegibility due to funding being pulled. I have patients complaining all the time but there’s nothing we can do.

I was going to suggest this. Where I live there’s a volunteer service that takes people to hospital and home. It’s not free, you pay mileage at 45p per mile but it’s much cheaper than taxis. We’re rural so no public transport so this sort of thing is really helpful.

You don’t have to be receiving means-tested benefits for the low income HTCS.

My local patient transport wont take you if you get PIP...

Surely that means that they won't take the people who need it the most, for example someone so severely disabled that they cannot walk even a few steps, who need help to anything for themselves.

What a farce.