Financial help is vital for cancer patients

IN JULY, in partnership with Welsh Government, we published the results of our second Wales Cancer Patient Experience Survey.

The survey expresses the views of more than 6,700 cancer patients.

The results are encouraging – 93% of cancer patients in Wales said they’d had a positive experience of cancer care. There is much to be celebrated.

But delve below the surface and significant areas of concern remain, not least over the fact that 52% of cancer patients are not receiving the financial information or advice they may need.

We know that after diagnosis itself, money worries are the next biggest concern for people with cancer.

With most facing an average of £570 a month in lost income or increased expenditure, money worries can quickly become a source of huge anxiety and stress.

Dealing with the emotional and physical impacts of cancer is one thing, trying to do so while worrying about how to pay your bills is another thing altogether. Wales’ refreshed Cancer Delivery Plan acknowledges this. Published in November 2016, it commits to providing information on how to access welfare benefits advice to everyone diagnosed with cancer in Wales.

Macmillan Wales is at the forefront of supporting people in this way.

Since 2010, Macmillan Wales has secured over £75m in welfare benefits payments for people affected by cancer, helping thousands of people to cope with the huge financial pressures cancer can cause.

During 2016 alone, we helped people with cancer and their carers to access a staggering £13.7m in financial support – an average of £4,160 for every person referred into our services in Wales.

We have a nationwide network of welfare benefits advisers working to reduce financial anxiety for people with cancer by offering advice, delivering complex case work and helping people to access the support they need.

Yet when we look at the survey findings on cancer care services as a whole, it is apparent that Wales is only really scraping the surface when it comes to ensuring people with cancer receive the financial information they so desperately need.

Of those patients who indicated that information about financial help or benefits would be relevant to them, over half said they had not received enough.

Around 23% of all survey respondents indicated they had received no information on financial help or benefits from hospital staff at all, even though they would have liked some.

It’s also all about the timing. One 53-year-old female who completed the survey reported how information was given far too late – resulting in a premature return to work because of money worries, even though her care nurse was advising her to wait.

At Macmillan Wales, we believe everyone with cancer should get the support they need, at the time they need it the most – usually the earliest possible opportunity following diagnosis.

Even when living with a cancer diagnosis, there are still mortgage or loan repayments to be met, food and clothing to buy, cars to tax and insure or electricity and gas bills to pay.

Cancer can affect so many parts of a person’s life, and will impact on each individual person in widely differing ways.

The stresses far exceed the purely clinical and our cancer care teams need to be aware of this wider story.

What is apparent from these survey findings is that there is still much work to be done to offer people a holistic needs assessment to get a full understanding of people’s social, emotional or financial needs.

More importantly, much more needs to be done to tell people with cancer about the specialist services that have been put in place to help ensure their individual needs can be met.

If you have been affected by cancer and would like information and support from Macmillan, please visit www. macmillan.org.uk or call the Macmillan Support line free on 0808 808 00 00.

Susan Morris is head of services for Macmillan Wales