37k DLA claimants in WHSCT

He outlined the number of people claiming Disability Living Allowance (DLA) in response to an Assembly Question. He said the data were sourced from the ASU DLA scans and showed that there were over 37,560 claimants in the Western Health and Social Care Trust (WHSCT) last November.

Mr McCausland revealed that ‘middle rate care and lower rate mobility’ accounted for the largest number of claimants (9,100); followed by ‘middle rate care and higher rate mobility’ (7,560); followed by ‘higher rate care and higher rate mobility’ (6,620). He said the figures were rounded to the nearest ten.

He stated: “Claimants are allocated to a Health and Social Care Trust area by postcode. In some cases this is not possible, for example, a postcode may be missing, incomplete or incorrectly recorded.” The lowest claims were for ‘higher rate care only’ (540); ‘lower rate mobility only’ (600); and ‘lower rate care and lower rate mobility’ (980).