A multi-agency service offering people living with cancer access to advice on benefits, housing, employment and debt will be launched by the Citizens Advice Bureau next week.
The extended service in Airdrie will see CAB and Macmillan, join together with new partners South Lanarkshire Council, North Lanarkshire Council, NHS Lanarkshire and The Pension Service to offer free, independent advice and support for people living with cancer.
Speaking ahead of the launch, Eileen McKenna, manager, Airdrie CAB said she hoped the “ground breaking” initiative will form a blue-print for other long term conditions.
She said: “We are really proud of the service and are incredibly pleased by this new development. The partnership has been hugely successful and by working more closely with a wider range of partners we are hope that we can build on that success and help even more people living with cancer access the support they are entitled to.
“This is a ground-breaking initiative, and I hope that it could form the basis of a blue-print for other long-term conditions that has such a profound impact on people’s lives.”
Elspeth Atkinson, Macmillan's director for Scotland and Northern Ireland said:
"More people than ever before are living with cancer and many are eligible for benefits. Unfortunately two thirds of those who die of cancer each year do not receive the disability benefits to which they are entitled.”
Scotland has the lowest take up rate of Disability Living Allowance and Attendance Allowance in the UK, with 64 per cent of terminally ill cancer patients failing to access the £15 million in benefits to which they are entitled.
Atkinson continued: “Macmillan's flagship partnership service in Lanarkshire offers financial advice and support to those who need it. This is a significant step forward to ensuring that every Scot has access to help and information as a routine and systematic part of their cancer journey."
South Lanarkshire council leader Eddie McAvoy said the council is delighted to be part of the extended partnership, adding that he hopes it will see the work being done go from “strength to strength.”
While Douglas Sinton of the Pension Service said that working together and pooling resources will ensure that everyone can be offered an “excellent” service. He added:
"Collectively we can increase uptake of entitlements, reduce duplication, enable customers to provide personal information only once and improve people’s quality of life and independence by intervening before the time of acute need."
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