Cancer Patient Financial Support

VintageBelle

Hi,

I don't know if this is in the correct place, if not please move.

My colleagues husband has been diagnosed with cancer and signed off work while his treatment is underway.

After his first op when the cancer was removed he went back to work after his recovery but because he wasn't given chemo, on his first day back to work he got given the news his cancer was back and was therefore signed off again. Due to complications with a non cancer related op last week where the hospital perforated his bowel his op to remove the cancer a second time has been postponed for 4 weeks. He has also been advised he will get chemo this time.

His wife works full time. He is on SSP at the moment but they are struggling. Is there any financial support he can apply for while recovering/going through his treatment as it's just an added worry on top of a tremendously stressful situation.

Any advice will be really really appreciated.

Many thanks

Anna

KatrinaWaves

I believe chemotherapy gives you an automatic entitlement to PIP (whether its mobility or care or both Im unsure) Worth checking into.

NeilCr

Can I suggest that he contact MacMillan

They have benefits advisors who work directly with those affected by cancer. In my experience they are very good and will guide him in the right direction - and offer practical help, too

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

poppy12345

KatrinaWaves said:

I believe chemotherapy gives you an automatic entitlement to PIP (whether its mobility or care or both Im unsure) Worth checking into.

This only applies for a terminal diagnosis of 6 months or less and a DS1500 form is needed.

freccles

Contact Macmillan - they'll go through all the possible entitlements with him and can often help with getting fuel costs capped and even grants for living expenses

VintageBelle

Thank you all. I will pass on the information

BooJewels

I'm in a similar situation to your friend and can confirm that you don't automatically get PIP without a terminal diagnosis (and are issued a DS1500 as Poppy said) and also second the advice to speak to Macmillan - their Welfare Rights team are incredibly patient and helpful and they're just helping us to put together our PIP application.  The first chap I spoke to confirmed everything by email and gave me a checklist of things to look into/apply for and I just printed it out and ticked everything off.  Some I've done, some I wasn't eligible for, but might be in the future.

It was @Alice_Holt in another thread in another forum here where I was asking about pensions that suggested talking to someone like them - and without that, we would have missed out on the opportunity for several things.  Largely because the benefits calculators seem to give erroneous outcomes for some situations and I think ours was one.  I'd repeatedly been told by them that we weren't eligible for anything - but we should get ESA and maybe daily living PIP too.

Hopefully someone here can confirm this - but I think if the SSP comes to an end (is it after 28 weeks?), even if this poor chap is still employed, he can then apply for the new style ESA (contribution based?) when the SSP stops?  I only found that out very recently as we missed out on that last year as we were badly advised at the time.

calcotti

BooJewels said:

.Hopefully someone here can confirm this - but I think if the SSP comes to an end (is it after 28 weeks?), even if this poor chap is still employed, he can then apply for the new style ESA (contribution based?) when the SSP stops? 

That is correct, provided they meet the NI qualifying conditions. The health related qualifying condition is having a health condition that limits ability to work and not entitled to SSP. The employer should issue a form called an SSP1 which confirms the date SSP ends. Once you have the SSP1 an ESA claim can be made and is payable from after the SSP finishes. If receiving or recovering from radiotherapy or chemotherapy they will automatically be treated as not capable of work or work related activity. A claimant can therefore retain employment, and can also be receiving contractual sick pay, and claim new style ESA.

As their health improves they can undertake limited work without affecting their ESA. This is known as ‘permitted work’ which is work of less than 16 hours and earning no more than £131.50/week - but they should tell DWP before starting.

BooJewels

calcotti said:

If receiving or recovering from radiotherapy or chemotherapy they will automatically be treated as not capable of work or work related activity. A claimant can therefore retain employment, and can also be receiving contractual sick pay, and claim new style ESA.

Thanks for the clarification about being able to claim ESA whilst in work - I'd read it briefly recently and wasn't sure I'd understood it correctly - we definitely missed out then in 2019 - but it might help the OP's friend if SSP runs out.

Does the bit in bold also apply if you're out of work, as my husband is currently undergoing chemo and we've just applied for ESA and expected to end up in the Support group, but thought it would need to go to an assessment etc. (presumably still will?) as the chap at the Job Centre was asking about treatment and my husband reeled off some medications and he said "no, I just need to know if your treatment is classed as chemo."  So that would make more sense now.  His current fit note states that he's having it too.

calcotti

BooJewels said:

calcotti said:

If receiving or recovering from radiotherapy or chemotherapy they will automatically be treated as not capable of work or work related activity. A claimant can therefore retain employment, and can also be receiving contractual sick pay, and claim new style ESA.

Thanks for the clarification about being able to claim ESA whilst in work .....

Does the bit in bold also apply if you're out of work.

To be clear. I am not saying that ESA can generally be claimed while someone is actually working. I am saying they can claim while employed and they can be receiving contractual sick pay.

In theory if there is work being done which is less than 16 hours and earnings are below £123 then it would be possible to claim ESA but in practice this would be quite difficult and if you had to stop work for more than 3 days due to illness you could become entitled to SSP (if earning over £118) which would then end your ESA entitlement.

The bit in bold applies to anybody claiming ESA (or UC). For ESA you obviously need to meet the qualifying NI conditions. Claimant will still be sent the Work Capability questionnaire but if cancer is their only health condition they only need to complete the first few factual pages and then get the back page completed by one of their medical team. All the questions about lifting your arms, moving cardboard boxes or milk cartons around etc can be ignored (unless their are other health conditions as well as cancer). The length of time before reassessment will reflect what is written on the back of there form any the medical person describing the length of time the treatment is expected to affect the claimant.

BooJewels

calcotti said:

To be clear. I am not saying that ESA can generally be claimed while someone is actually working. I am saying they can claim while employed and they can be receiving contractual sick pay.

Apologies, I did understand the distinction, that was my fault for sloppy wording, I should have said 'whilst still employed' rather than 'in work'. In our case - as may also happen in the OP's friends situation - the period of illness may end up longer than the SSP lasts, meaning, if still in employment, but unable to work, contribution based new style ESA may be payable after SSP ends - for the OP's friend.

We had 4 months after SSP ended when he couldn't get back to work - not his fault, his employer wouldn't let him back until he jumped through a lot of OH hoops that delayed his return for 5 months - until they 'let him go' anyway (not for health reasons, but once you get lawyers involved, the relationship becomes untenable). Although thinking about it as I write that, I now remember that he did have a fit note saying he was able to return to work, so that would be why we couldn't get it. So I don't think we did miss out after all.

calcotti said:

The bit in bold applies to anybody claiming ESA (or UC). For ESA you obviously need to meet the qualifying NI conditions. Claimant will still be sent the Work Capability questionnaire but if cancer is their only health condition they only need to complete the first few factual pages and then get the back page completed by one of their medical team.

Thanks. He does meet the NI conditions, we checked that before even ringing for a form. We'll see what the further forms say when they arrive. I don't like that you have to get medical people to fill stuff in, they're already overworked enough as it is, I feel horrible asking them for more than just medical care. I'm going to need their help for the PIP too.