Defending cancer patients' benefits

In an open letter to Iain Duncan Smith, the Secretary of State for Welfare and Pensions, also sent to the Times, the charities argue that proposals in the Welfare Reform Bill will push some cancer patients into poverty.

The letter has 89 signatories, including Breakthrough Breast Cancer Chief Executive Chris Askew, 29 other charity CEOs, senior oncologists, medical experts, cancer patients and Peers.

Here follows a full transcript:

Dear Secretary of State,

It is with grave concern that we are forced to write to you again about the impact the Welfare Reform Bill proposals will have on cancer patients. 

As representatives and supporters for the whole cancer community, we are speaking on behalf of many cancer patients and their families whom we believe the Welfare Reform Bill will push into poverty.

Cancer patients want to work. They haven’t chosen to give up the safety of employment. The assertion that providing hard earned benefits at a time of greatest need encourages a dependency by seriously ill cancer patients on benefits is utterly without foundation.

The UK’s leading cancer charities have repeatedly asked for vital changes to the Bill. However, not only has the Government failed to address their concerns but instead you are proposing to make it even harder for many patients undergoing gruelling chemotherapy to claim the financial support they desperately need.

In our experience of treating, supporting, or being cancer patients, one year is simply not long enough for many people to recover from cancer treatment. Chemotherapy and radiotherapy can be highly debilitating. The ongoing and severe side-effects can leave patients struggling for years. Although there is clear evidence that one year is not long enough for patients to recover, the Government has shown no willingness to find a compromise.

Your proposal to cut a vital out-of-work benefit – Employment and Support Allowance (ESA) – after one year will leave 7,000 cancer patients up to £94 worse off a week simply because they have not recovered quickly enough. These are people who have paid into the system all their working lives. It is wrong to put them under further financial and emotional distress on top of recovering from a life-threatening illness.

We are very concerned by plans to change the rules to force cancer patients in the middle of intravenous chemotherapy to undergo stressful benefit checks to receive ESA. They could be asked to attend back-to-work interviews or be found fit for work while undergoing treatment. This is despite recommendations from senior oncologists and cancer charities who stated that all patients undergoing
chemotherapy treatment - and who have to leave work - should be automatically eligible for this benefit.

We accept that the benefits system is in need of reform. However, the proposals in the Welfare Reform Bill will leave cancer patients without vital financial support when they need it most. Despite repeated opposition from cancer charities, MPs, and Lords, the Government has so far failed to act on these concerns. As the Bill enters its final stages, we urge you and your Ministers to please listen to us and work with the cancer community to make the Bill fairer to cancer patients.