Ill health retirement

Hi Jayne alsopkj

If I parallel your situation to mine when I had to retire through health grounds, although perhaps my situation was slightly more loaded in my favour because I had also developed a spinal stenosis diagnosis which put me in a wheelchair, everything went pretty smoothly.

Even before the spinal stenosis happened, my GP was advising me to retire and the surgery would take care of everything regarding DLA as it was then and also ESA which they did. 

Jayne, you have cancer, I don't know which type you have or how serious, although every cancer is serious but woe betide anyone who tries to get you back into work when you are stricken with such an illness. I'd say it's more or less a formality, it's something that has to be done by a doctor on behalf of the insurance company or whatever. It's clearly a big event to them but no one will be out to browbeat you into submission and once the decision is taken then your payments should be within weeks. How are you supposed to live otherwise. 

Good luck Jayne, I hope all goes well for you.

Tvman xx

Hi Jayne

I understand that McMillan have a dedicated specialist team that can guide you thru these difficult issues - my advice would be to spk with them asap.

Best of luck

Hi Jayne, I just wanted to say before your call it is worth while writing down all your questions, as you think of them, because on the day you can easily forget what you wanted to ask! 
Regarding early retirement, I did try to look at your Profile page to see how old you are but it has not been filled in yet. To be honest, asking "how long after you speak to the Doctor is a decision made" is like asking How long is a piece of string because everyone is different!  I would tend to advise the same as SiT and speak to the McMillan Specialist Team. They have probably gone over this with lots of people so will steer you in the right direction! Good luck!

Hi Jayne

I’m not sure if this is the same but I retired from the NHS following my cancer diagnosis and because my life expectancy was less than 12 months they paid my pension as a lump sum. This was supported by the Occupational Health Doctor, even though HR and Payroll pussyfooted around quite a bit before making the final decision.  The doctor didn’t ask anything much about my illness, treatment etc.  This was probably because he had obviously not read my referral properly before the appointment and I looked as healthy as a trout. He was reading the referral aloud in front of me and when he got to the bit about terminal cancer he blurted out ‘Oh F***’ He was sooo embarrassed, I laughed and he couldn’t stop apologising but he said he would support my application in any way he could. I bet he never went into an appointment so unprepared again!!!

Anyway, to get back to your question, it took about 3 months before the payment was made and I think that was because Payroll did not want make the whole payment in one go. In the meantime I was on sick leave and received my salary.

As SiT said MacMillan has a team who specialise in this area and I would recommend that you speak to them too. They sorted out PIP and ESA for me too.

On a side note, I have a Life Insurance Policy which should pay out when a terminal illness is diagnosed but because they wrote to my oncologist who is so pleased with my progress, as I am, he said I am stable on immunotherapy they won’t pay out. 

I hope this is helpful.

Patmart

Thanks Tvman.  I’ve stage 4 incurable but still treatable small bowel cancer with a prognosis given of 0-5% chance of living 1-5 years. Take care Jayne x 

Thanks Annette, I’m the grand age of 57! Jayne x 

Thanks Patmart. Take care Jayne