The extent to which war pensions are disregarded in care funding assessments has been questioned in the House of Keys.
The query from Onchan MHK Julie Edge followed a ministerial answer from Health and Social Care Minister Claire Christian, who confirmed war pensions are “partly disregarded” for income support assessments conducted by Treasury.
Detailing the current rules, Ms Christian said “the first 30 pound per week of a war pension, war widows pension, or war widowers pension is disregarded when determining entitlement”.
She added that recipients of a war disablement pension are exempt from certain NHS charges.
However, Ms Edge asked: “Can the minister go back to Manx care and check that they are fully disregarding a war pension when any of our war pensioners enter a care facility?”
The MHK noted that doing this is in the Armed Forces Covenant.
She also raised potential inequality for “self funder” pensioners who have saved, asking the minister to check “whether there’s an equality impact assessment being carried out”.
Ms Christian acknowledged the complexity, noting technical questions on calculations should go to Treasury, but agreed to investigate.