To ask the Minister of Health what consideration his Department has given to the creation of a grant that can be provided to families with children requiring overnight hospital care to assist with costs.

The Help with Health Costs (HwHC) scheme provides individuals, primarily on low incomes, with financial help towards the cost of dental treatment, eyesight tests, glasses or contact lens, and travel costs for HSC treatment on referral by a doctor or dentist. The eligibility criteria are set out in legislation and certain benefit recipients automatically passport on to the scheme.

Preparatory work has recently commenced in advance of updating the Travelling Expenses and Remission of Charges Regulations (Northern Ireland) 2004. The focus of the update is to reinstate automatic passporting for those eligible to receive free sight tests and free Health Service dental treatment through the Help with Health Care (HwHC) scheme following the migration of their benefits to Universal Credit by the Department for Communities (DfC).

The commencement of a wider review of the provisions within these Regulations and associated HwHC scheme will be considered once this urgent work is completed and in line with available resources.