My mum’s £201 a week state pension is her only income –  then it suddenly stopped and her life was thrown into chaos

For Elizabeth Fletcher from Hemsworth, in West Yorkshire, the state pension is a lifeline. 

The 90-year-old is among the many one-in-four pensioners who treasure it as their most important supply of earnings in retirement.

Crucially Elizabeth’s £201-a-week state pension and pension credit score funds additionally fund the charges for her new care dwelling, which she moved into on January 15.

So when the Authorities all of a sudden stopped all funds to Elizabeth simply 11 days after she’d settled in on January 26, her new life was thrown into chaos.

Over the next 9 weeks, Elizabeth went on to overlook out on practically £2,000-worth of funds. 

And regardless of her daughter Wendy’s greatest efforts to search out out why her mom not acquired any state pension, she was unable to get any solutions from the Division for Work and Pensions.

With out the cash, Wendy, 63, who lives 9 miles away in Wakefield, says she feared her mom can be evicted from the care dwelling.

Wendy says: ‘It has been extremely hectic. My mom isn’t very properly and can’t cope with the issue, so I’ve taken it upon myself. Nevertheless it appears to be inconceivable to get by to the DWP for assist.

‘I’ve been tearing my hair out and doing all the pieces I probably can.’

Wendy says she alerted the pensions division on January 26 to the truth that her mom was transferring right into a care dwelling.

Till January, Elizabeth acquired attendance allowance, which helps with additional prices when you’ve got a incapacity extreme sufficient that you just want somebody to assist take care of you in your house. Wendy notified the DWP of her mom’s change in circumstances when she moved into the care dwelling.

She anticipated her mom’s attendance allowance to cease however was shocked when the state pension and pension credit score funds have been additionally instantly halted.

‘I attempted to do all the pieces by the ebook however it has been a nightmare,’ says Wendy.

‘The invoices saved coming by from the care dwelling and I’ve been fearful she might be evicted for non-payment.’

Elizabeth, mom of 5 and grandmother of 5, was often called the Shirley Bassey of the North in her youth, when she sang at working males’s golf equipment.

She labored in varied roles all through her lifetime, together with hospital assistant.

Wendy says it turned clear Elizabeth wanted full-time care when she might not bear in mind how you can do easy duties, resembling make a cup of tea. Her signs current as dementia, Wendy believes.

Wendy, who labored within the police power for greater than 40 years, most just lately as a police neighborhood assist officer, has leukemia and has taken early retirement. She says the ordeal has taken a giant toll on her personal bodily and psychological well being.

The previous officer has spent hours making calls to the pensions division, however regardless of her efforts, nobody helped get the funds resumed.

After hour-long waits to talk to an official, Wendy says she was met with ‘impolite, unhelpful and inexperienced’ employees who have been unable to resolve the difficulty. On three events, the road was dropped mid phonecall.

Errors: In 2020, the Authorities admitted it had made systematic errors in state pension calculations. In whole, 237,000 aged girls have been affected

She says: ‘They saved placing the telephone down. I don’t know whether or not it’s as a result of it acquired too sophisticated for them however the name would simply finish abruptly.’

Every time the decision was terminated, Wendy confronted one other hour-long wait to talk to a different employee. The frustration introduced her to tears.

In March, out of desperation as she feared her mom would quickly get evicted from the care dwelling, Wendy contacted her native MP Andrea Jenkyns, who wrote to the DWP.

9 weeks after the funds have been halted, Wendy was relieved to see that £1,809.45 had been deposited into Elizabeth’s account. However she acquired no letter or telephone name to clarify.

‘The cash simply turned up sooner or later. They haven’t given me any apologies and haven’t advised me why it occurred,’ she says.

When approached by Cash Mail, the DWP confirmed the funds would resume as regular. 

A spokesman says: ‘We’ve got reinstated Mrs Fletcher’s pension funds and issued arrears to cowl the suspension interval. We’re sorry for any inconvenience induced.’

It’s understood that the funds have been stopped on account of an administrative error made by the pensions division.

Cash Mail has seen instances previously the place state pension funds have been incorrectly lower or suspended when the recipient reported a change in circumstances.

In a single case, a widow’s state pension was lower following the dying of her husband, whereas different suspensions have been right down to laptop glitches.

In 2020, the Authorities admitted it had made systematic errors in state pension calculations.

In whole, 237,000 aged girls have been affected. Estimates recommend they’re owed practically £1.5 billion in underpaid state pension.

Final week, MPs wrote to the DWP elevating issues about yet one more group of ladies who’ve probably been underpaid state pensions. 

Divorced girls who reached state pension age earlier than 2016 could have been shortchanged in the event that they wrongly missed out on top-ups associated to their ex-husbands’ contributions.

Sir Steve Webb, a former pensions minister and accomplice at consultancy LCP who has been on the forefront of highlighting underpayments, says the error in Elizabeth’s case was ‘unacceptable however not stunning’.

‘The DWP operates at such scale that the person can get misplaced,’ he says.

‘You’d think about this kind of scenario occurs on a regular basis and it’ll occur more and more ceaselessly as extra of us stay longer and want care, so the DWP ought to have programs in place to make it seamless.’

• Have you ever had points with the state pension? Write to [email protected]