Please help

shanh1

Trying to find out info for a friend Il keep it short, worked all her life, had breast cancer in her late 20s, went through multiple treatments overstays ect, and still worked but now years and years down the line now has Underactive thyroid, fybromytalgia, arthiritis. Reynards phenomenon and is also going through menopause, unable to have treatment for that because she’s not allowed HRT because of having breast cancer. Her fingers are all bent ect now aswell. It’s not great. Anyways she had to stop work, applied for UC. Now the lady at the job centre told her to apply for everything she thinks she can, but gave no help on where or what, does anyone know what she can claim apart from universal credit? With the way things are just now we need to get it right the first time, she also asked citizens advice, spoke to a guy and he gave her his number after and she’s not been able to reach him for several days, If you’ve read this far thank you 

Jimm_Scope

Hi @shanh1, I'm sorry to hear how your friend is doing. I hope we can help in some way. I want to start by saying you must be a really good friend. I'm glad she has some support in the form of you!

Has she tried to just contact Citizen's Advice in general rather than specifically that one person? In my history of using Citizen's Advice you are usually assigned a case number and all the information is stored on it so anyone in Citizen's Advice can access it and help?

She may be entitled to far more than just UC, you can try to find out here Turn2us Benefits Calculator. 

Has she requested a WCA (Workplace Capability Assessment) yet?

poppy123456

UC has replaced all other mean tested benefits. As Jimm has asked, has she reported her health condition and provided a fit note? This will start the work capability assessment process of. She will need to continue to send the fit notes without any gaps until a decision is made on the WCA. Details here. https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/universal-credit-if-you-have-a-disability-or-health-condition-quick-guide/universal-credit-if-you-have-a-disability-or-health-condition

New style ESA maybe possible if she's paid the correct NI contributions by working at some point during the last 2 tax years. There's no financial gain to claiming it because if entitled to payments it's just deducted in full from any UC entitlement. Though it's still worth claiming it if entitled because it's not means tested like UC is. It's also a weekly benefit paid fortnightly so can help to budget a little easier.

Details here. https://www.gov.uk/guidance/new-style-employment-and-support-allowance

There's also PIP (assuming she doesn't live in Scotland) it's a disability benefit that isn't means tested. So other income/savings/capital do not affect the amount she maybe entitled to. Whether there's any entitlement will depend on exactly how her health conditions affect her. Full details in the links here. https://www.citizensadvice.org.uk/benefits/sick-or-disabled-people-and-carers/pip/

https://www.citizensadvice.org.uk/Global/Migrated_Documents/adviceguide/pip-9-table-of-activities-descriptors-and-points.pdf

https://www.gov.uk/pip/how-to-claim

shanh1

Thanks very much to you both for replying, job centre are sending her a form to fill in and she has been giving in sick notes for the past 6ish weeks, and before this as she gave up and tried to go back to work but managed 3 days so she went back to job centre, so apart from universal credit she will need to apply for pip? She does live in Scotland, if that makes any difference 😊 I will get all the proper info from her tomorrow and hopefully we can get her sorted sooner rather than later, as just now she’s just getting the standard single persons uc handing in sick notes but she did mention a form to do 

poppy123456

As she's living in Scotland it will be Adult Disability Payment she needs to claim, not PIP. https://www.mygov.scot/adult-disability-payment/how-to-apply whether she qualifies will totally depend on how her conditions affect her.

ClemmieRoob

I'm not an expert, but your friend might consider applying for disability benefits like Personal Independence Payment (PIP) if she hasn't already. Charitable organizations and local councils can provide additional support for her specific health conditions.

poppy123456

ClemmieRoob said:

I'm not an expert, but your friend might consider applying for disability benefits like Personal Independence Payment (PIP) if she hasn't already. Charitable organizations and local councils can provide additional support for her specific health conditions.

The friend lives in Scotland therefore PIP isn't possible to claim, as it's only for England, Wales and N. Ireland. As i advised here.

poppy123456 said:

As she's living in Scotland it will be Adult Disability Payment she needs to claim, not PIP. https://www.mygov.scot/adult-disability-payment/how-to-apply whether she qualifies will totally depend on how her conditions affect her.