Costs of caring for a child with cancer: a questionnaire survey

Abstract

Although families are offered timely information about their entitlement to benefits, financial problems are incurred by families of a child with cancer partly because legislation prevents benefits being claimed for the first 3 months of a child's illness - the time when expenses are still at their highest. Furthermore, because benefits are backdated only to the point at which the claim was made, families do not recoup all their costs. Waiving of the 84-day wait period for children undergoing chemotherapy and radiotherapy, and the introduction of weekly bridging payments while a Disability Living Allowance claim is being assessed, would ameliorate this problem and so improve the treatment experience for families.