The 2008 Diffuse Mesothelioma Scheme
The 2008 Diffuse Mesothelioma Scheme covers people with mesothelioma whose exposure wasn’t through their own employment, so they fall outside the 1979 Pneumoconiosis Act (chapter 6.8) and have no civil claim against a UK employer. It sits in the Child Maintenance and Other Payments Act 2008 and has been paying out since 1 October 2008. The same DWP team administers it as the 1979 Act, using the same PWC1 claim form and the same sliding scale by age at first diagnosis.
Who it’s for.
- Para-occupational exposure. Most often a spouse or family member who washed asbestos-contaminated work clothes for years and developed mesothelioma decades later. A real, common route to the disease that civil law has historically struggled with.
- Environmental exposure. Living near an asbestos factory, school or site where fibres reached the wider neighbourhood. Hebden Bridge, Armley, Erith and other UK communities have well-documented clusters.
- Self-employed exposure.Where the exposure was through your own work but you weren’t legally an employee — tradespeople working on their own account on multiple sites, for example.
- Any casewhere the patient has diffuse mesothelioma, was exposed to asbestos in the United Kingdom, isn’t entitled to a 1979 Act payment, hasn’t received damages or compensation from an employer, and isn’t entitled to Armed-Forces compensation for the same disease.
What you get. A single tax-free lump sum, set on the same sliding scale by age at diagnosis as the 1979 Act. Patient awards are higher than dependant awards. The uprated figures are on gov.uk.
The clock. A patient claim must reach the DWP within twelve monthsof the diagnosis. A dependant’s claim must reach the DWP within twelve months of the death. As with the 1979 Act, miss either window and the claim is usually refused.
How to claim. Ring the dust-disease lump-sum line on 0800 279 2322and ask for a PWC1 claim pack — or ask your specialist nurse, solicitor, or local Asbestos Support Group to send the claim for you. Where para-occupational exposure is the route, a short witness account from the patient (or, after death, from family) describing the years of washing work clothes is usually the central evidence.
2008 vs 2014. A common mix-up: this scheme (2008) is for people with no legal route to a civil claim because there is no employer-employee relationship. Chapter 6.10, the 2014 Diffuse Mesothelioma Payment Scheme, is for people who would have a civil claim if the employer could be traced, but can’t bring one because the employer or insurer has vanished. Different statutes, different fund, different test — same DWP teams in some cases will refer you to a solicitor to work out which is yours.