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Palliative Care Dumfries & Galloway

Palliative Care

in Dumfries and Galloway

Staff Area

Health-Social-Care-Logo

Financial support for patients and families

When people are diagnosed with a terminal illness, they may worry about the impact this will have on their finances. For some people, this is their main anxiety in their last weeks and months.

What can I do?

There are a few important things to begin with:

Be as honest as possible with people about their prognosis, in a sensitive way, discussing at their pace.

Ask what job they have, if any, and if they are self employed.

Encourage people to plan ahead and get finances and legal affairs in order.

Offer referral to support for life / citizens advice to check they are getting appropriate benefits.

Consider whether a DS1500 is indicated, and discuss this with them.

The D&G Citizens Advice Service is a service which is experienced in helping people who are needing help with finances.

  • provide practical assistance to apply for any social security benefits
  • help identify and apply for additional funding
  • assist with any other problems i.e. debt, housing, employment, etc.

Support for life (support4life) from citizens advice:

Referral form 

Patient leaflet

or contact via email: support4life@dagcas.org

What is a DS1500?

A DS1500 report form supports the claim for benefits under SPECIAL RULES. This allows an individual’s application to be processed differently to other individuals. The difference that these special rules make will depend upon the disability benefits that the individual is applying for.

Terminal illness is a complex and sensitive clinical issue. A terminal illness is regarded as a progressive disease, which can reasonably be expected to cause an individual’s death. Terminal illness includes a wide range of different diseases and individuals may have a single disease or a number of conditions at any one time.

In Scotland, registered medical practitioners will use their clinical judgment to determine whether an individual is terminally ill for the purpose of accessing disability assistance under special rules. In Scotland (England is different) there is no set reference to time restriction. Scotland’s Chief Medical Officer’s framework is currently awaited to assist practitioners in this.

Once completed, the form should be handed  to the patient, or in DGRI to the MacMillan benefits team based by the front door of the
hospital.