Advice Please

REDSHOES

Hi. Some advice here would be very much appreciated.

My husband has Prostate Cancer which has spread to his bones. He is 62, and since diagnosis (3 and a half years ago) up until the start of this year he has worked full time except for 4-5 months he had to take off during 2016/2017 for Chemotherapy treatment. He has been very lucky in that his workplace will pay him full pay for a full years absence over a rolling 3 years. This year however he has been very unwell and the full years salary will come to an end at the beginning of November. He has had to take time off sick due to serious health issues and then in early July he fractured his right hip due to years of hormone medications of various kinds and the radium treatment he started in February this year. Currently he is in hospital after blood and platelet transfusions due to a hip infection following surgery. Anyway, at the moment he appears to be making good progress and we hope to get him discharged and back home soon.

Financially I am unsure as to what we should do now We have always worked full time (me around our 3 children who are now all grown up) Never had any time off sick during our lifetimes other than very very minimal and never claimed for anything except for child allowances when our children were eligible - so this is a completely new situation for us both. I have dipped my feet into the water very slightly and have claimed for PIP which is currently ongoing.

My husband has been in his current job for 19 years and he is eligible to take his company pension enhanced up to his normal retirement age. It is a fair amount and with a reasonably good lump sum. He had started to get all the projections for this and then was taken into hospital and we have nut discussed this much since. However previous to all this he had said he would not retire yet because if he died whilst still in service then I would receive a larger amount. It's still all up in the air and It's not the main topic for discussion currently. The only important subject when we visit is getting him better and out of hospital.

I am aware that my husbands salary will stop in little over 1 month. I still work full time - I am a few years younger and am fit and healthy - fingers crossed. We are used to 2 full time wages coming in. Our mortgage is paid off but we do have some credit card debt and we also wanted some work on the house completed before we both retired. As well as his salary, he also receives a pension from his old workplace which he started claiming for about 6 years ago. Not a large amount by any means but it does go into the pot and we have been used to earning a good amount between us every month. Now, when his salary stops we are going to be minus that amount.

I would be very grateful of some advice. As I have said we are in the process of potentially claiming PIP. However is there anything else we can claim for? We originally thought that my husbands rolling 3 year sickness could be lengthened as he was going back to work after he had time to re-cuperate - this has not been the case due to complications with his recovery. I have no idea if it would be best for him to retire completely now, or if he should stay employed with his company - and it is something I really do not want to bring up currently whilst he is still in hospital. The priority is just to get him well and discharged and my family and I are at his bedside for many hours doing our best to keep him motivated and optimistic.

Apologies about the length of this, but some advice would be very much appreciated as to the best course of action.

Regards

Rubyroobs

If he has paid enough NI contributions over the relevant years he may be entitled to claim New style ESA irrespective of your income. The only other benefit is Universal credit but that would depend on your earnings and savings. On UC your husband may be awarded the Limited capability for work and work related activity element and you could claim the carers element irrespective of what your earnings are if he were to be awarded PIP daily living. However your overall UC award could be reduced or eliminated altogether if your earnings are too high. His pension would also reduce UC. Macmillan would be good for advice if you have their benefit advisers at your local Oncology centre.

NeilCr

Maybe an idea to see if a MacMillan Benefits Advisor can help and support you. My experience of them is good

https://finance.macmillan.org.uk/benefits/find-benefits-information

They also provide financial advice

https://www.macmillan.org.uk/about-us/contact-us/financial-guidance.html

Rubyroobs

The Macmillan financial guidance team would be good to guide regarding pensions and credit card debt - they can guide on the best way to deal with debt and how to access pensions early and also estate planning/ wills if you need that kind of guidance too.

calcotti

If you are continuing to work and/or you have savings over £16,000 it may well be that there will be no entitlement to UC.

As rubyroobs has said the other benefit to look at is 'new style' ESA. Your husband could have claimed this as soon as his Statutory Sick Pay entitlement ended. It is not means tested. Initially he will get £73.10/week. He needs to have a GP or hospital Fit Note saying he is too ill to work when he applies. If he is having or recovering from radiotherapy or chemotherapy he can automatically be treated as having Limited Capability for Work and Work Related Activity and will be placed in the Support Group. The amount he gets will then rise to £111.65 from the 14th week.

Although new style ESA is not means tested if your husband takes a pension this will be considered. If he receives a pension of more than £85/week his ESA will be reduced by 50% of the pension amount over £85.

https://www.gov.uk/guidance/new-style-employment-and-support-allowance

Note that he can receive ESA at the same time as occupational sick pay - the restriction is that he cannot receive it while entitled to Statutory Sick Pay. SSP entitlement runs for 28 weeks so if he has not worked since early this year I would expect it have run out by now. His employer should give him a form SSP1 telling him when his SSP entitlement ran out. He can then backdate the ESA claim to the day after SSP ended or for a maximum of 3 months before the date of claim of SSP entitlement ended more than 3 months ago.

There are benefit calculators you can use to see if you would qualify for any UC https://www.gov.uk/benefits-calculators. Note that if he claims ESA this will be deducted from any UC entitlement.

If your income is low you may also be able to get Council Tax Reduction from your local authority - this reduces your Council Tax payments.

If there is a Macmillan Support team in your hospital they may be able to put you in touch with a Benefits Advice team.