The Take-up Study: Understanding and improving benefit take-up towards the end of life
Marie Curie Research Grant Scheme
Duration: 21 months
Duration: 21 months
Researchers
Dr Joanna Davies
Lead researcher
King’s College London
Professor Richard Harding
Researcher
King’s College London
Watch: Understanding and improving benefit take-up towards the end of lifeWatch: Understanding and improving benefit take-up towards the end of life
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.
