Under current Universal Credit rules, if you have a health condition or disability which makes you unable to work you can claim a cash top up on your Universal Credit payment
The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) has shared a full list of medical conditions which could make you eligible for an extra £390 a month.
Under current Universal Credit rules, if you have a health condition or disability which makes you unable to work you can claim a cash top up on your Universal Credit payment. This is called the limited capability for work and work-related activity (LCWRA) and is currently worth £390 a month – going up to £416 in April. To be eligible, you need to undergo a work capability assessment (WCA) and be placed into the LCWRA group.
Recent data published by the DWP on March 14 revealed that two million people were claiming Universal Credit due to health reasons between January 2022 and November 2023 – this was up from 1.6million the year before. Of this, 1.4million people were placed into the LCWRA group and received the £390 top up, whilst 347,000 were assessed as having “limited capability for work” (LCW) and received an extra £146 a month – going up to £156 in April.
This Limited Capability to Work top up is only available to people who were placed into this group before April 2017. A further 272,000 had acceptable medical evidence of a “restricted ability to work” before the work capability assessment was introduced.
The DWP also shared information on what conditions people who undertook a work capability assessment between January 2022 and November 20243 had and how many people experienced them. These included:
- Mental and behavioural disorders – 874,000
- Diseases of the musculoskeletal system and connective tissue – 610,000
- Diseases of the digestive system – 286,000
- Diseases of the circulatory system – 261,000
- Diseases of the respiratory system – 236,000
- Endocrine, nutritional and metabolic diseases – 190,000
- Diseases of the nervous system – 188,000
- Diseases of the genitourinary system – 159,000
- Symptoms, signs and abnormal clinical and laboratory findings, not elsewhere classified – 127,000
- Diseases of the eye and adnexa – 122,000
- Diseases of the ear and mastoid process – 79,000
- Diseases of the skin and subcutaneous system – 78,000
- No medical condition information available – 238,000
Of the 1.2million work capability assessments made during this time, around 69% of them were recorded as having a mental health disorder. Overall, 90% of claimants classed as having a Limited Capability to Work had a mental health condition.
The DWP noted that claimants often had “complex health issues” and could be recorded with multiple conditions within its statistics. It also noted that unlike other disability benefits such as Employment Support Allowance (ESA) statistics, its Universal Credit data did not have a”primary medical condition” recorded.
