The Take-up Study: Understanding and improving benefit take-up towards the end of life
Marie Curie Research Grant Scheme
Duration: 21 months
Researchers
Dr Joanna Davies
Lead researcher
King’s College London
Professor Richard Harding
Researcher
King’s College London
Lay abstract
Around 90,000 people die in poverty each year in the UK. Better access to benefits for people living with a terminal illness can help to lift people out of poverty and improve dignity. We don't know how many people living with a terminal illness miss out on the benefits available to them, but in the wider community benefits often go unclaimed.
To improve benefit take-up for people living with terminal illness, we need:
better data on how many terminally ill people take up the benefits available to them, and groups most at risk of under-claiming
a better understanding of the experience of making a claim, and interventions that could improve take-up, especially for groups most at risk of under-claiming.
Workstream 1 will investigate the take-up of benefits among people living with a terminal illness using data from the Department for Work and Pensions linked to census and mortality records.
Workstream 2 will use qualitative interviews and focus groups to understand the barriers and facilitators to claiming benefits from the perspective of patients, carers, and health care professionals.
Workstream 3 will review existing benefit take-up initiatives from across the voluntary, community and local authority sector to understand what is already being done to support people living with a terminal illness to claim benefits.
Workstream 4 will use the findings from workstreams 1, 2 and 3 to develop guidance and resources for healthcare professionals to support patients to make benefit claims, and to make local and national policy recommendations for monitoring and increasing benefit take-up for people living with terminal illness.
This project involves people with a lived experience of financial hardship from the outset.
It's only with your support that we can continue to be there for anyone with an illness they're likely to die from, and those close to them. Donate today and help ensure a better end of life for all.
