The Jobseeker’s Allowance Regulations (Northern Ireland) 1996

3.—(1) The weekly amount for the purposes of regulations 83(c) and 84(1)(d) (residential allowance) in respect of a person who satisfies the conditions specified in sub-paragraph (2) shall be £54·00.

(2) Subject to sub-paragraphs (3), (4) and (5), the conditions are—

(a) the person resides in a residential care home or a nursing home or is regarded, pursuant to sub-paragraph (5), as residing in such a home;

(b) the person both requires personal care and is provided with it in the home and for this purpose “personal care” means care which includes assistance with bodily functions where such assistance is required;

(c) he does not have a preserved right;

(d) he is aged 16 or over;

(e) both the person’s accommodation and such meals (if any) as are provided for him are provided on a commercial basis, and

(f) no part of the weekly charge for accommodation is met by housing benefit.

(3) For the purposes of sub-paragraph (2), but subject to sub-paragraph (4), a person resides in a residential care home where the home in which he resides—

(a) is registered under Part II of the Registered Homes Order, or

(b) is managed or provided by a body incorporated by Royal Charter or constituted by statutory provision (other than a Health and Social Services Board or an HSS trust) and provides both board and personal care for the claimant,

and a person resides in a nursing home where the home in which he resides is such a home within the meaning of regulation 1(2) (interpretation).

(4) A person shall not be regarded as residing in a nursing home for the purposes of sub-paragraph (2) where the home in which he resides is a hospice, and for this purpose “hospice” means a nursing home which is registered under Part III of the Registered Homes Order and whose primary function is to provide palliative care for persons resident there who are suffering from a progressive disease in its final stages.

(5) For the purposes of sub-paragraph (2)(a), where a person’s principal place of residence is a residential care home or a nursing home, and he is temporarily absent from that home, he shall be regarded as continuing to reside at that home—

(a) where he is absent because he is a patient, for the first 6 weeks of any such period of absence, and for this purpose—

(i) “patient” has the meaning it has in Schedule 4 by virtue of regulation 85, and

(ii) periods of absence separated by not more than 28 days shall be treated as a single period of absence equal in duration to all those periods, and

(b) for the first 3 weeks of any other period of absence.

(6) Where—

(a) a person has been registered under the Registered Homes Order in respect of premises which have been carried on as a residential care home or, as the case may be, a nursing home, and that person has ceased to carry on such a home, and

(b) an application for registration under that Order has been made by another person and that application has not been determined or abandoned,

then any question arising for determination under this paragraph shall be determined as if the most recent registration under that Order in respect of those premises continued until the day on which the application is determined or abandoned.