DanaC |
01-14-2016 08:29 AM |
Preamble: Just after Christmas I got two letters. One was from the Housing Benefit office telling me they'd overpaid me on rent assistance.
At full rate, the payment used to be £30 per month less than the rent. With my earnings taken into account that comes down. My earnings have been a tad eratic for first few months of work - first month included training days, but was a short month on shifts. Third month and fifth month earned a small bonus. Prior to Christmas they suspended payments on my claim until I provided wage slips for three months and a couple of weeks later, they reinstated my claim, and as the figure they were prepared to pay was £40 less than before I foolishly assumed they'd recalculated (right?) .
The letter that came after Christmas showed they'd recalculated again and come up with a figure £70 less than before (so, £100 less than rent) retrospectively applied tothree months and they're taking back the overpayment at just under £54 per month. So, basically pretty fucked on the rent :p
The second letter was from the NHS telling me the dental treatment I recently had and wasclassed as free as a JSA claimant, was not free, as the treatment occurred when iwas not a JSA claimant. Except, the treatment was started whilst i was on JSA - and I deliberately stayed on JSA enduring all the indignities of the fucking 'work programme' for almost four months longer than I had toin order to get that dental treatment because I know I'd be unable to afford the NHS charges once I signed off. The dentists cancelled my appointment three times, across three of those months because theyhad equipment thatbroke down and they had tosend off to the US for a replacement - whic then was difficult to get set upand theyhad to get someone in to sort it out, and then the anaesthetist was ill - etc.
When they cancelled that third time, I'd been near to tears and had explained to the receptionist that I was coming under a lot of pressure to sign off from unemployment but didn't dare until I'd had the treatment, which was necessary but wholly unafforable even at NHS rates to someone working 15 hours a week. They said not to worry, because it would all go through as part of the original treatment plan which began when I was a claimant and therefore continues on that basis.
So - after a week or so of trying to work myself up to make a call I spoke to the dentists and the lass I spoke to said she'd look into it. I then took another week to work up to ringing them again to find out what was what, before I would have to start trying to gather the mental energy to phone the NHS repayments people.
This is the happy bit:
I spoke to the dentists just now. The receptionist wasn'tthe one who'd originally agreed to look into it, so I had to explain the situation again. She went off to see what was what and I was expecting, I dunno - that I was going to start having to write letters or make calls to the NHS, or that there wasn't anything they could do once it's been dated as that date for treatment. She instead came back and said XXX is actually dealing with this now. She's in email communication with the NHS peeps, and is trying to sort it out at their end, so not to worry.
I then phoned the Housing Benefit repayment people and explaine dthe situation to a nice chap who assured me that if I put that in an email to the assessment office they would take my circumstances into account and reduce the repayment rate. It's still going to sting my finances, but not by as much.
Now I just have the traditional January-oh-shit-I-may-not-have-busfares-for-the-last-week-of-work panic to contend with and hell, I'm almost there on that... just need to get to the end of next week.
I'm feeling quite relieved. The next month or so won't be easy, but I don't think I'm looking at the castostrophe I thought I was.
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