Are people with disabilities living in residential care eligible for the cancer benefit payment

[Difference]

Hi

I am NOK for a family member who has Cerebral Palsy, learning difficulties and other related health conditions. He lives in residential care in Norfolk and is in his early 60s. He has stage 4 Bowel Cancer, which has spread. He is a wheel chair user.

Although reasonably well at the moment he would like to visit his Mum, who has Dememtia and lives in a Care Home in London. Costs for this are £500, and I was able to organise a visit for him earlier this month.

My question is, would he be entitled to receive the cancer payment benefit, bearing in mind that he is in a funded residential care placement? This would help enormously to fund visits to his mum, while he is able to still travel.

Any advice would be grately appreciated.

[49Twister]

I honestly have no idea. Does he pay towards his support? Regardless I feel he should receive it after all he has cancer. I hope he stays well. This money should be made available from somewhere to visit his mum. Does he have a social worker you can contact. Who looks after his benefits? That person could contact DWP to make enquires regarding this. When he was diagnosed was he not put in contact with someone regarding benefits in this situation. There should be money made available for this. I’m so sorry I can’t be more help hope someone can.😊

[Difference in reply to 49Twister]

Thank you for your reply. He doesn't have an allocated social worker, but I have had calls from Norfolk Adults Health and Care after safeguarding investigations etc, so he is known to them and has had a social worker in the past. I'm not certain but I don't think he contributes anything to his care. I imagine that his care home are responsible for maintaining his benefits, but just like their last CQC report said under "Well Led" = Requires Improvement, they don't seem to be able to deal with anything which isn't straight forward. I had to organise his visit to his Mum recently as, in their words "We're not responsible for finding transport" (even though I live in a completely different part of the country). This will be something that I suspect I will need to research and then present them with my findings otherwise nothing will get done.

[LDAutie in reply to Difference]

hi,i hope you both forgive me for jumping in on this reply but what they have said about them not being responsible for finding transport is totaly wrong-every person in a residential home (or any other care setting) has a key worker who is respsanble for looking after their needs above all other support staff,such as sorting out care and transport for that time.

as they havent had a social worker in ages it sounds like their current care needs around their physical health and the cancer worsening wont have been been added to their care plan plus the home has got a bit lazy with updating the social services so they really shoud have a kick up the rear for not supporting your LO enough-however in a lot of places around the country-the CLDT services have a huge backlog of people waiting for a social worker right now, but theres lots of reasons why your LO shoud and woud be put ahead of the cue.you can contact the local CLDT,ask for a new social worker to be given,and ask for your LO to be also put on the priority list for a social worker because their care needs are not being looked after well, they need to see their mum as a priority, theyre stage 4 in cancer along with their other conditions all impacting on them, and they may not be able to travel much longer.i know it shoudnt be up to you just like it shoudnt be up to my eldely parents to continusly harass the CLDT here to get me a new social worker but if you get back to them every 3 days, they will get fed up.

does your LO have a motability car/WAV? if not, and if you coud get someone to be a driver, i think its possible to get motability set up and an already built second hand WAV in around 6 weeks, WAVs have a dearer one off payment than regular cars-like,over £1000 but WAV contracts are not 3 years old like regular ones,theyre 5 years long so it works out cheaper i was told,i do know motability will allow any owner to cancel under certin reasons such as a disability worsening making the original car difficult to use or unsuable or death of the owner,the reason i know this- my staff are having to cancel my car right now so i can get a WAV and they have been told theyre very open with canceling for most reasons,and the most they charge for canceling is £250 but in the case of a disability worsening (which is mine) i think they said they do it for £11 usualy.

if this isnt possible to get one, woud speaking to the media to get hooked up to a taxi company who use WAVs and dont mind doing a free job for media advertising help? any family members who coud go along as their official support?

there is also putting his story out there, in the local media, and making a patreon account or any other ones that are for raising funds-your LO woud defintly get the money to get a driver/support staff who have had enhanced DBS checks etc,its worth a look into ? i know of one disabled man in the UK (he had CP,he was using one of these community funding sites to get a properly adapted bungalow built as the councid woudnt help) i can recomend patreon as a lot of people i 'follow' on youtube use it to fund their shows to stay open.

i know this is the sort of cause id donate to and im sure a lot of people woud say the same thing.

im sorry for the length of my post i have quite severe lifelong epilepsy damage to my memory so i forget after each sentance.

[49Twister in reply to LDAutie]

Great answer LDAutie,, this man's circumstances have changed enormously with this illness. I don't have any experience regarding residential care, but I definitely feel his needs have changed dramatically and everything needs updating to give him the best support and care. Visiting his mother should definitely not be an issue and money should be in the pot somewhere for this What does WAV stand for?