Individual DCA cases are routinely reviewed to ensure that the conditions for receipt of the payment continue to be met. Reviews are scheduled based on the recommendation of the medical assessor (MA) when the application is initially processed, based on the potential for the care needs of the child to change over time. The scheduling of reviews is not based on the particular disability of the child but on the potential for change to their care needs.
Reviews are initiated with the parent/guardian being asked to complete a "review of medical criteria form", which also requires medical input from the child's GP. The parent returns this form together with any additional recent reports of ongoing medical or therapeutic services the child may be receiving. This information is then sent for review by a medical assessor who will provide an opinion to the deciding officer on whether the child continues to meet the medical criteria for receipt of the payment.
The revised decision of the deciding officer is communicated to the customer in writing and if they are not in agreement with the outcome they have the option to appeal the decision to the Social Welfare Appeals Office. Any new or additional information received after the issue of the revised decision and before the appeal is heard, is further assessed by a different medical assessor. In this way, the review process affords parents/guardians every opportunity to provide additional information from any source they wish and to have this information assessed at an early stage with payment restored, where necessary, without the necessity of an appeal hearing.
In response to recent customer requests, the timeframe for the return of the completed review form has been extended from 21 to 60 days and the customer will also be advised at initial award stage of their scheduled review date, with notification issuing 2-3 months before that date. This will allow parents to have any documentation they may wish to submit available in advance of the review date.
A total of 129 domiciliary care allowance recipients who were found to no longer satisfy the medical criteria have had their allowance stopped to date in 2012. On 31st March 2012, there were 24,176 customers in receipt of the allowance in respect of 25,966 children. This compares to 24,048 customers who were in receipt of the allowance in respect of 25,873 children on 30th November 2011.