Some of the UK’s most severely disabled and sick children and their families are being denied financial help when they need it most.

A child’s Disability Living Allowance (DLA) is stopped after 84 days in hospital and subsequently the parents’ Carer’s Allowance is suspended. This is despite the extra costs to a family when their child is in hospital such as loss of earnings, travel, parking and food.

Contact a Family and The Children’s Trust, Tadworth, are calling for the rules to be scrapped. The charities have are running a campaign Stop the DLA Takeaway.

If you think these rules are unfair - you can e-mail your MP to show your support to the campaign

To find the e-mail address of your MP visit the Find My MP website, enter your postcode and press search and your MP's details will appear. You may have to go to their individual website to get their e-mail address. Below is some suggested text you can copy and paste into an e-mail to highlight the campaign. Don't forget to copy in elaine.bennett@cafamily.org.uk into your e-mail, so we can keep track of the impact of the campaign. Thanks!

Find My MP

Dear MP
I am writing as a supporter of Contact a Family and The Children’s Trust’s Stop the DLA Takeaway campaign, which is calling for changes to the Disability Living Allowance (DLA) regulations that are causing misery to hundreds of families with disabled children when they are at their most vulnerable.

When a child spends a long period in hospital or another medical setting, their parent(s) will naturally want to spend as much time as possible supporting them.

Families in this situation face extra costs, including loss of earnings, travel, parking, childcare for siblings and meals. This can be financially devastating at a particularly difficult time.

There are an estimated 500 cases of children and their families affected by these rules each year and scrapping them would cost just £3 million per year. I understand that it is a difficult time to propose even a small extension of welfare benefits, but I feel strongly that policy makers should be aware of this anomaly.

If you are interested in hearing more about the campaign please contact elaine.bennett@cafamily.org.uk

Yours sincerely,

Name and address - so they know you're a constituent