In this episode, Chandos talks to Denise one of our benefits advisers. Through talking to our community we know the financial impact of a brain tumour diagnosis can be huge and cause a great deal of stress and anxiety so we partnered with Citizens Advice to provide support and information around not just benefits but a wide range financial issues. Denise explains more about the work she does at the Money and Benefits Clinic and what support you can get by booking an appointment.
Our Benefits and Money Clinic runs on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays from 10am - 4pm you can find out more and book an appointment here
NB: As we are a UK based charity our Benefits and Money Clinic is only available to UK residents
As always our support team are always here to support you, you can call them on 0808 800 004 or email support@thebraintumourcharity.org
In this episode, Chandos talks to Denise one of our benefits advisers. Through talking to our community we know the financial impact of a brain tumour diagnosis can be huge and cause a great deal of stress and anxiety so we partnered with Citizens Advice to provide support and information around not just benefits but a wide range financial issues. Denise explains more about the work she does at the Money and Benefits Clinic and what support you can get by booking an appointment.
Our Benefits and Money Clinic runs on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays from 10am - 4pm you can find out more and book an appointment here
NB: As we are a UK based charity our Benefits and Money Clinic is only available to UK residents
As always our support team are always here to support you, you can call them on 0808 800 004 or email support@thebraintumourcharity.org
Welcome to Let's Talk about brain tumours the podcast where we'll be talking to people who have been affected by brain tumour diagnosis, either their own diagnosis or the diagnosis of a loved one. We'll also be sharing news and updates and brain tumour charity about what we're doing to have the harm and double survival.
Chandos:Hi, everyone, and welcome back to the brain tumour charity podcast. In today's spotlight episode, I'm chatting with Denise, about the benefits support clinic at the brain tumour charity, we'll be speaking about all support and signposting information is accessible for you. As you try and navigate the world ater a brain tumour diagnosis, what is it you do Denise at the brain tumour charity?
Denise:Well, I'm basically there as a benefits and money advisor that can cover a huge range of different things. Obviously, it's identifying benefits that people that have got a diagnosis, or newly diagnosed, wouldn't might be able to apply for. It also deals with applying for those benefits, helping with the forms that's necessary, how they navigate the benefits system, which can be quite complicated sometimes. And also challenging decisions that the benefits department have made, which they're not happy with. I couldn't do all of that, from the benefits side. When it comes to the wider sort of financial things. I can help with looking at someone's budgets, particularly if they've had to stop work or if their income has suddenly gone down drastically, which it can do after diagnosis. It can also be looking at what extra help is available to people, particularly at the moment with the cost of living issues. Because people with debt or payments that they can't make, a lot of people are worried about their ability to continue paying their mortgages, for example. So I can basically go through some of the things that might be available for help with from their mortgage companies, or what sorts of things to bear in mind. So it can cover an awful lot.
Chandos:What sort of support is available to someone who's newly diagnosed with a brain tumour?
Denise:Well, from the benefits clinic, it would be looking at what their likely treatment pathway is. I mean, obviously, I can't do anything about that, because I don't have any more medical qualifications at all. But if I know like that, they're likely to be off work for some time. If I know that they're likely to be affected long term, then we can look at benefits specifically dealing with those types of things, if they're able to continue working, but might need some help from their employer or some adaptations, or reasonable adjustments to enable them to stay at work, I can explain what sorts of things would generally be available, what rights they have as an employee, and what the duty of care is from the employer, whether they come under the Disability Discrimination Act, and all of the sort of like the information around that, there can be an awful lot of information. And for someone that's newly diagnosed, for me, it's more about pointing them to where the sources of help and information are. Because a lot of people won't have had any dealings with the benefit system previously, won't know anything about it won't know where to go. And I get an awful lot of people that have tried to do sort of Google search with things. And they'd get getting conflicting information, which may be accurate, depending on their circumstances. But some of the information can be quite difficult to attribute to particular situations. So I deal with all of that as well.
Chandos:And in terms of the you've mentioned there some of the challenges like with getting benefits in the first place, if they are needed, what support for people's mental health might be available if they if they are struggling with understanding all the information and stuff like that.
Denise:Ah well, I can help basically to interpret some of the information. I can't help with mental health per se. Although I do know that the support team at the brain tumour charity, now have a counselling function. And if I think someone is struggling, I will genuinely ask if they want me to refer them back to the support team to see if they could get some sort of extra sort of like emotional support was in mental health, all that sort of thing. And me and the support team do have quite a nice crossover. Where if I think someone is in need of extra support with that permission, because I always asked their permission, I can refer them back to the support team. And the support team can do something similar. If they get someone who's really worried about their money or their benefits or a particular situation. They can refer them off to me. So that actually works quite well. Yeah.
Chandos:And how does someone ask for the support or approach you or the team to talk about what support might be available?
Denise:Well, when it comes to sort of like financial or money benefits type support, the easiest thing they can do is either book an appointment directly with me through the brain tumour charities website, or they can ring the support team and say that they need some help with money or benefits. And then the support team will will schedule them an appointment, if I've already had an appointment with them. And I know that I'm going to need to see them again, either for a different reason, or for a follow up, I can actually also book ongoing appointments, whilst I'm actually talking to them.
Chandos:And how can people access benefits and financial advice through the charity to reduce the financial burden of having a brain tumour, we've kind of talked about some of the options available.
Denise:Yeah, I mean, generally speaking, the easiest thing to do is to just put in an appointment, I'm quite happy to talk to anybody about anything, there are certain things that I can't advise on. I'm not a registered financial adviser, so I can't give financial advice. I can give information and sort of like help with how to access, you know, proper financial advice, should that be necessary. Similarly, I know a bit about pensions. But I'm not a registered pensions intermediary either. So I can't give proper pensions advice. But what I can do is advise people where to go to get that or how to start off with it. So like looking at their pension scheme, and the documents that come for the pension scheme, and then asking sort of like the scheme itself, what sort of help and variations are available?
Chandos:I guess, because there's the problem is, is that a brain tumour can come at a time and can affect people differently. So knowing what support might work for someone might not work for another person.
Denise:Exactly. It's very, very individualised, because there are so many different types of tumour, and they can be in so many different places, and they can have so many different treatment pathways that trying to get a sort of like a, an umbrella or a catch all it's almost impossible. Best thing I would always advise everyone to do is to book in an appointment. And then we can look at the specifics of their particular situation and find the right benefits for them as individuals, or the right sort of like help or support. Because sometimes it's not about benefits, it can be about dealing with some of the other stuff around it.
Chandos:Yeah. And it's not, as you said earlier, it's not just this one person on their own. It's a collaborative approach, like your support from the wider charities. Well, it's not just a one size fits all approach.
Denise:No, not at all. In fact, that's one of the nicest things about it is it's so individualised and so tailored to what each individual person actually neat.
Chandos:That's great. Thank you so much for chatting with me today. Denise, that's okay. Whether you've been diagnosed with a brain tumour or a family member or friend has the brain tumour charity are here to help. Call. 0808 800 Triple 04 That's 0808 Triple Zero 4 for more information and support. You can also visit the brain tumour charity.org For further information and guidance on what we've talked about in today's episode. Thanks again. Speak to you soon. Bye.
Sarah:We hope you enjoyed today's episode. Don't forget to subscribe to the podcast so you'll never miss an episode. If you'd like more information, you can visit our website at brain tumour charity.org or email our support team at support at the brain tumour charity.org And finally, before you go if you enjoyed this podcast, please can you leave us a review on iTunes wherever you get your podcasts so we can reach more people and raise more awareness