Hundreds of disabled people in Warwickshire have had their benefits stopped during extended hospital stays under a rule that charities say penalises the most vulnerable.

It comes after a court case was withdrawn which had been set to challenge the lawfulness of the so-called "hospitalisation rule" through an application for judicial review.

Under this rule, a person's entitlement to the disability benefit Personal Independence Payment (PIP) is suspended if they have received care in a hospital or a similar institution for 28 days or more.

Affected families said they were needed to help care for their disabled relatives in hospital which led to extra expenses during this time.

But the government says when somebody is in receipt of long-term NHS in-patient care, it does not pay benefits to stop the taxpayer from paying double.

Figures obtained by the BBC Shared Data Unit show that in 2022, 430 people across the five Warwickshire boroughs had their PIP suspended while in hospital.

Warwick district saw the most cases with 120 people affected.

And numbers are on the rise with only 290 incidents reported in 2020.

In Warwick district the benefit suspensions last year mainly hit people suffering with anxiety and depressive disorders including Schizophrenia and Bipolar affective disorder.

Critics say the so-called hospitalisation rule particularly affects people with profound and multiple learning disabilities (PMLD) who are more likely to have lengthy hospital stays.

They say that a disability does not stop when a person enters hospital, and the costs incurred by family members - often the known carers for the person claiming benefits - are often higher during this time.

Charities said the way the rule was applied to people detained under the Mental Health Act meant they could not benefit from the independence to aid their treatment, to which they were entitled.

Learning disability charity Mencap's head of policy, Dan Scorer, said people with PMLD were "more likely to fall foul of the 28-day rule".

The loss of financial support could have a detrimental impact on the ability of family members and carers to continue their support, he said.

Though the judicial review case had been withdrawn, Mr Scorer said Mencap would continue to work with affected people to "challenge its fairness".

However, the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) said this "long-standing rule" was "to avoid double provision from public funds".

It said it had not found any evidence suggesting people with PMLD were disproportionately impacted.

The department maintained that because of rising numbers of people receiving PIP, suspensions "still formed a very small proportion of the overall PIP caseload".

A spokesperson said the DWP was "committed to ensuring that disabled people get all the support to which they were entitled".