Kidney patients in Shropshire to get financial boost
More than £1 million of additional income has been awarded to kidney patients across Shropshire and the rest of the UK by a charity.
The money has been awarded by Kidney Care UK, through it’s welfare and benefits health check service, delivered in a partnership between its patient support and advocacy team and Midlands-based Auriga Services Ltd.
Designed to deliver a range of financial support to help patients navigate life during the most difficult of times, the scheme is designed to maximise income by ensuring that all welfare benefits and other sources of income are identified and claimed; including, for example, warm home discounts, water and energy savings, and financial assistance grants.
Applications are completed and even court representation is undertaken, if needed.
The success of the scheme has enabled an increasing number of patients to better understand what financial support is available to them and, importantly, the scheme allows Kidney Care UK and Auriga to act on the patient’s behalf helping them navigate the system.
As the chief executive of the UK’s leading kidney patient support charity, Paul Bristow wanted to do more to ensure that kidney patients were getting all the support they needed and to make the process as easy and as smooth as possible.
Mr Bristow said: “We are extremely proud to have reached this important milestone and the value of working with Auriga to make this happen has been clear to see. "When you are living with the relentlessness of kidney failure, it affect all aspects of your life.
"Being able to work can be incredibly difficult, especially when dialysis has to be undertaken for several hours, several times a week.
"The impact of this can have a huge effect on individuals and their whole family and many people come to us not knowing where to turn.
"Knowing that we’ve been able to help so many individuals secure the income they are entitled to and the huge difference it can make to their quality of life is incredible.”
Mark Abrams, chief executive of Auriga Services Ltd, said: “Our mission at Auriga is to always achieve the very best long term financial wellbeing for our clients and to ensure those who qualify, gain a full range of benefits they deserve yet often miss out on.
"The income maximisation work that we do with Kidney Care UK is time consuming, and in depth – it works by building trust over time with the patients so that they share lots of information that allows us to help with their general wellbeing.”
To find out how Kidney Care UK’s welfare and benefits health check could help you, contact the charity on 01420 541424 or info@kidneycareuk.org
