Serious offenders kept in mental health hospitals under Hospital Orders will stop receiving benefits from early next year, the Department for Work and Pensions has announced. The change, reported by the BBC, ends what ministers call "double provision": patients whose bed and board are already paid for by the NHS can currently also claim Universal Credit, in some cases more than £800 a month.
Key points
- Who loses out — patients detained under hospital orders for a dozen serious violent and sexual offences, both those already in hospital and future cases.
- Who is unaffected — people held under the Mental Health Act 1983 with no offence to their name, and anybody moved to hospital from prison, already excluded from claiming.
- The money — the government expects the move to save tens of millions of pounds a year.
- The campaign — families of victims, including those of the Nottingham attacks and Kennedi Westcarr-Sabaroche, pressed for the loophole to be closed.
Work and Pensions Secretary Pat McFadden said the government had promised to act on "this gross unfairness" and was delivering. "These violent criminals have had their living costs met by the taxpayer twice over for far too long, while their victims and families paid the price," he said.
The regulations were laid after talks between McFadden and bereaved families. Emma Webber, mother of Barnaby Webber, who was killed in the Nottingham attacks, said the change was "simply the right thing to do, and long overdue". Kennedi Westcarr-Sabaroche's uncle Leon Westcarr said he took encouragement from the fact that "this long-standing injustice has been recognised and addressed".
The government stressed that anyone detained under a hospital order will still receive appropriate mental health support. Julian Hendy, of the charity Hundred Families, called the move "a very welcome" one that his organisation had campaigned on for nearly a decade.
What it means in practice
For most people this changes nothing directly — it touches a small group of patients and the benefits system that funds them. But it is one of those decisions where the practical effect is mostly about money and principle: public funds stop paying twice for the same person's living costs.
- Patients and families — anyone detained under a hospital order for a serious offence should expect benefit payments to stop from early next year; mental health care itself is not affected.
- Taxpayers — the savings are counted in tens of millions a year, though the exact figure will only become clear once the rules are in force.
- Watch this space — the regulations have been laid but the detail of how and when payments end is still to be confirmed.
