Macmillan accused of ‘betrayal’ over plan to awl most cancers advantages recommendation carrier

Macmillan Cancer Support is to scrap its £14m-a-year specialist recommendation carrier, which is helping tens of hundreds of other folks annually, in what has been described as a betrayal of inclined sufferers.

Macmillan, one of the most UK’s largest and highest-profile charities, instructed workforce and companions this week it deliberate to stop investment its specialist advantages recommendation services and products in simply over a 12 months’s time.

Its recommendation services and products lend a hand most cancers sufferers navigate the advantages device to verify they get monetary make stronger if they have got to surrender paintings all through remedy, in addition to lend a hand with the additional prices in their sickness, similar to meals, heating and shipping.

The newest annual figures from 2022 display the services and products, operated below contract via 70 native Citizens Advice branches, secured £112m in make stronger for 34,000 most cancers sufferers, a minimum of 1 / 4 of whom had been residing in poverty, and 40% of whom had been pensioners.

Macmillan mentioned its centrally run phone helpline would proceed to supply welfare recommendation, however advisers instructed the Guardian that not like the Citizens Advice-run services and products, this could no longer be offering in-depth specialist recommendation, do casework or have native wisdom of make stronger services and products.

The cuts to the services and products come 3 months after the Guardian printed that Macmillan had axed 1 / 4 of its workforce to chop prices and scrapped its annual £17m hardship fund, which gave £200 grants to tens of hundreds of most cancers sufferers on low earning.

Macmillan mentioned the present welfare recommendation preparations had been unaffordable however investment can be prolonged to the tip of May 2026 to allow it and Citizens Advice to “explore options” and establish attainable selection long-term preparations.

Steven McIntosh, the manager partnerships officer at Macmillan Cancer Support, mentioned: “We’re proud of the impact achieved through funding of local welfare benefits organisations and advisers, but we are concerned that the way we fund this support cannot meet growing demand and isn’t sustainable.”

Just two years in the past a Macmillan record boasted that the charity’s welfare and fiscal recommendation services and products exemplified its “unwavering commitment” to serving to most cancers sufferers all through their “most vulnerable moments” and had a good have an effect on on their well being.

Two days after companions had been instructed of the most recent cuts by the use of webinar, Macmillan Cancer Support attended a reception at Buckingham Palace hosted via King Charles in assist of most cancers charities, during which he highlighted the “community of care” of those that helped most cancers sufferers, and praised them for his or her humanity and experience.

The cuts had been won with surprise and anger via welfare advisers, who mentioned the intensity and experience of the carrier had been irreplaceable, whilst the timing – earlier than the federal government’s £5bn cuts to incapacity advantages, which can be the only largest center of attention of Macmillan-funded welfare make stronger – may no longer be worse for most cancers sufferers.

One instructed the Guardian: “If there is one thing worse than having cancer, it’s having cancer with no money. The people who run Macmillan just don’t understand that. They have betrayed everything Douglas Macmillan [who founded the charity 114 years ago] stood for – that those with cancer should not be forced into poverty, but here we are, all those years later, where that is now a reality.”

A former Macmillan staffer who left the charity after their publish used to be reduce final 12 months, mentioned: “This has gone down pretty badly among staff. It is well known inside Macmillan just how much of a godsend the welfare advisers are to people with cancer.

“I just don’t understand why they are getting rid of a service that so many thousands of people rely on, while at the same time, hiring senior people on large salaries.

“I get why cuts may have to be made, the climate we are in, but I don’t understand why the welfare advisers are the ones to be cut, why the frontline has to be cut, when there are so many senior people sat in offices discussing strategy and in meetings all day.”

A Citizens Advice spokesperson mentioned: “We are in ongoing discussions with Macmillan to understand the implications of funding changes and how sustainable benefits advice for cancer care patients could be delivered in the future.”

Macmillan has insisted it can’t “keep doing everything we previously did” as a result of in recent times its source of revenue – £233m in 2023 – has did not stay tempo with expenditure (£262m in 2023). But critics worry frontline services and products for the poorest sufferers seem to be bearing the brunt of the cuts.

Macmillan-funded Citizens Advice workforce are in a variety of spaces built-in into NHS most cancers services and products and function immediately from hospitals in order that sufferers can ask about cash worries in the similar position the place they’re handled. Other charities, similar to hospices, additionally depend at the advisers to make stronger their sufferers.