Where to get help

Financial benefits and practical help

Having ovarian cancer can be an expensive business. Whether you are travelling for treatment, tempting your appetite with special foods or buying more convenience foods when you don't feel like cooking, you need the money to afford to do so. If you want to try complementary therapies like reflexology or vitamin supplements, or perhaps you need to pay someone to help with your care, you are going to need your income topping up. This is particularly true if you have had to give up work, even temporarily.

This article is intended to jog to your memory about benefits and practical help. The Benefits Agency leaflet FB2, Which Benefit?, available from social security and post offices, is well worth reading.

Statutory Sick Pay (SSP)

If you work for an employer and pay Class 1 National Insurance contributions you will usually get SSP when you are off sick for four or more days in a row. SSP is paid to you by your employer for up to 28 weeks in a spell of sickness. You do not have to claim SSP. Just tell your employer that you are sick, send in your sick note, and they will arrange for your SSP to be paid to you in the same way as your wages.

Incapacity Benefit

If you are sick after 28 weeks you may be able to claim Incapacity Benefit. Your employer will give you a change-over claim form (SSP1). You can get Incapacity Benefit also if you are self-employed or unemployed but you must have paid enough national insurance contributions at the right rate and at the right time. However, you cannot get Incapacity Benefit if you were over state pension age on the day your illness began. Details of these and the two benefits that follow are set out compre-hensively in the Benefits Agency Leaflet FB28, Sick Or Disabled.

Disability Living Allowance (DLA)

For those under 65 suffering from serious illness, there is also the Disability Living Allowance. This tax-free weekly benefit, not dependent on any savings or other income, is payable for life. It includes allowances for personal care, even if no-one actually gives you help, and mobility. Special rules apply in our case because the disease is classed as terminal. So you don't have to wait three months before applying and can get the application form by filling in and posting the tear-off slip in Leaflet DS 704 DLA, available from social security offices.

Attendance Allowances

Over 65s can get Attendance Allowance - a tax-free cash benefit for those who need help with personal care because of illness or disability. It may be claimed by using the form in Leaflet DS 702, Attendance Allowance, also available from social security offices.

Home Care Assistance

You may also need Home Care Assistance, provided locally by social services after a needs assessment. Contact your local office and ask for a social worker to come to carry out an assess-ment. For those who qualify, help is available to get you up, washed and dressed, in making your breakfast, doing the shopping and essential household tasks. You may need to pay for this help.

I do urge you to take advantage of all the help available. If financial help or practical aid will give you less to worry about then your quality of life will improve. I have not covered help with transport to the hospital nor help with health costs. These too are covered in the leaflets mentioned above, which also contain useful addresses and free-phone numbers where you can obtain more information and advice. For your local social security office, look in the business section of your telephone directory for 'Benefits Agency'.

Sandra Jones
Sutton Coldfield

Editor's note: If you have any points to raise on the above article, please send an Email or write to me at the Ovacome address.

Birmingham support group

There is an ovarian cancer support group based at Good Hope Hospital in Sutton Coldfield. I am a Gynaecology Oncology Support Nurse, giving emotional and psychological care and support to all gynaecology cancer patients. I visit them in hospital and at home, telephone regularly, and provide all the appropriate information. We meet monthly in the Postgraduate Centre from 7.30 to 9.30pm. It is a lively group of super ladies. We may have an organised talk, for example on reflexology or aromatherapy, a musical quiz or go out for a meal.

If anyone would like to join us on the second Thursday of each month, please phone me on 0121 378-2211, ext. 3200. You will be most welcome.

Hilary Jefferies

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