As an existing or former member of Benenden Health we may be able to help if you're experiencing financial hardship through a health or wellbeing issue.
Benenden Charitable Trust - a helping hand when life takes an unexpected turn
If you're experiencing financial difficulties or distress because of a health condition or an unexpected change in circumstances, we may be able to help you financially.
Grants can be for a variety of needs such as:
Medical treatment not available through the NHS or Benenden Health membership (we’ll give consideration to whether the treatment is NICE approved).
Specialist equipment and disability aids including wheelchairs, mobility scooters, stairlifts, CPAP machines.
White goods, furniture and floor coverings.
Home adaptations and essential household repairs.
Short term care and assistance at home.
Help with short term childcare costs.
Respite care and short, recuperative breaks in the UK.
General financial help if you're struggling with everyday living costs.
We can consider requests for up to £3,000 towards treatment or equipment. If your need is greater than this, we may be able to help work with other organisations to find additional funding, depending on your individual need and where you have worked in the past. We can also consider requests for up to £1000 towards financial support.
Simply register your details, log in and begin completing your application. You can save your progress and come back to your application at a later date.
If you need any assistance completing the application online, or you have any questions you can speak to a member of our team on 0800 414 8450 (Mon-Fri 8am-4pm).
Alternatively, you can download a printable application form using the link below, or if you'd prefer to apply by post, you can request a form by calling 0800 414 8450 (Mon-Fri 8am-4pm).
We'll write to you to acknowledge your application within three working days of receipt. If we need any more information we'll contact you to ask for this.
Once we have all the information we need, it usually takes around two to four weeks to reach a decision, but for complex requests it can take longer than this.
If you have any questions which aren't answered, please use our enquiry form and one of our team will be in touch soon.
Alternatively, you can call us on 0800 414 8450 (Mon-Fri 8am-4pm).
Support for stress and anxiety
If you’re a Benenden Health member, you can call the 24/7 Mental Health Helpline for immediate emotional support in dealing with conditions like anxiety, depression, bereavement or relationship problems. If you’ve been a member for more than six months you may be able to access further Mental Health Support.
There's also a wide range of other organisations that support people with stress and anxiety. Here are a few that we hope you'll find useful:
If you're experiencing financial difficulties, there are a number of organisations which offer free advice and a range of money management tools to help you deal with debt and get back in control.
StepChange Debt Charity
Debt Remedy Tool- this free and anonymous online tool will create a personal action plan, giving you the best ways to deal with your debt. It takes about 20 minutes to fill out, but you can stop and come back to it as many times as you wish.
National Debtline
A free and impartial debt advice service which provides an online advice toolto help get back in control of your finances. You can also phone or email them for confidential advice.
Money Advice Service
The Money Advice Service has lots of useful advice and tools. The Budget Planner is particularly helpful if you're just starting to tackle your debt.
Christians Against Poverty (CAP)
A national charity specialising indebt counsellingfor people in financial difficulty, including those in need of bankruptcy or insolvency. CAP also provides Job Clubs for those seeking employment and Release Groups for people looking to overcome addictions and dependencies.
State benefits
There are a number of online resources which can help you identify any State Benefits you may be entitled to
As well as considering what help we can provide, we will often also be able to direct you to other organisations because of where you've worked, where you live - or another aspect of your individual circumstances.
If you give us your consent, where appropriate we can work directly with a number of other charities to source additional financial support for you.
Request more information
If you have any questions which haven't been answered, please use our enquiry formand one of our team will be in touch soon.
Alternatively, you can call us on 0800 414 8450 (8am-4pm Mon-Fri).
The difference we make
Assistance from Benenden Charitable Trust can come in a wide range of forms depending on the needs of the individual. The following stories highlight a number of ways in which we've responded to the needs of Benenden Health members who've found themselves in difficult circumstances because of ill health.
We're extremely grateful to the individuals featured in these videos for sharing their story and helping to bring the work of Benenden Charitable Trust to life.
We were formed at Benenden Health’s centenary conference in 2005 to help in situations where ill health results in financial hardship or distress.
Since then we've provided over £1.2 million in grants and have broadened the definition of when we can help to include non-health-related situations which might be impacting on someone’s wellbeing. These include relationship breakdown, redundancy and bereavement.
Our aims
Benenden Charitable Trust exists to assist people who find themselves in ill health or financial difficulty when life takes an unexpected turn. Requests are considered on a case-by-case basis and grants are made to help with a variety of needs including:
Medical treatment not available through the NHS or Benenden Health membership (we will give consideration to whether the treatment is NICE approved).
Specialist equipment and disability aids including wheelchairs, mobility scooters, stairlifts, CPAP machines.
White goods, furniture and floor coverings.
Home adaptations and essential household repairs.
Short term care and assistance at home.
Help with short term childcare costs.
Respite care and short, recuperative breaks in the UK.
General financial help if you're struggling with everyday living costs.
Trustees and staff
The Charity is run by a small team of staff and overseen by a Board of Trustees.
Staff
Amanda Shaw – Charitable Trust Manager
Michelle Conyers – Charitable Trust Executive
Clinical Advisors
Jane Abbott - Hospital Director
Cheryl Lythgoe - Society Matron and Head of Benenden Charitable Trust
Trustees
Paula Clark - Benenden Health Board of Directors Trustee (Chair)
We rely on the generous donations and fundraising efforts of our supporters to enable us to provide financial assistance grants in times of hardship and distress. The Benenden Healthcare Society Limited ('Benenden Health') makes an annual donation to cover the running costs of Benenden Charitable Trust, so 100% of the money we receive from individual donations and fundraising goes directly to help people in need.
The charity exists to improve health and wellbeing, and to relieve hardship and distress when life takes an unexpected turn. It achieves this by providing financial assistance to members or former members of Benenden Health.
Applicants must be a member or former member of Benenden Health, who have completed 6 months of membership, as well as friends and family who are named on another person's membership. We also accept referrals through selected partner charities.
Yes. The Charity considers the full circumstances of the applicant and their household, and the background to their individual situation. To make a decision, evidence is needed of all income, savings and capital, and all outstanding liabilities for all members of the household. Assistance will not normally be provided where overall savings are more than £17,500.
This information is used to get a picture of your full circumstances and therefore your needs. Without it we cannot understand the full picture and so won’t be able to make a decision on what help we can provide.
We’ll need details and supporting documents such as full monthly bank statements and relevant bills. We look at all your income and expenditure, so this includes housing costs, utility bills and household expenditure. We’ll ask about savings or assets and we also need to know about any debts, arrears or outstanding bills. If you're asking for help with the cost of medical treatment, or the provision of other, non-medical, products or services (e.g. stair lifts, home repairs, etc.), we will need copies of formal estimates, quotes or invoices for these costs.
All applications are considered individually. We’ll look to see what the unexpected need is and where we can be of most help. If it’s an emergency, we may be able to offer a one-off payment to provide some breathing space to allow applicants to put other measures in place or seek further advice.
We can consider requests for up to £3,000 towards treatment or equipment. The maximum help we are able to agree towards financial support is £1,000.
Where an applicant's needs are more than £3,000 (e.g. where high value medical treatment is needed), the Charity may seek to share costs with other relevant organisations. Applicants will also be encouraged to look at what alternative resources are available to them and where appropriate, to pursue alternative sources of funding (e.g. commercial loans, help from friends and family, or other charitable organisations). If there's still a shortfall the Charity may consider providing financial assistance towards that amount.
No. The Charity's decision on an application is final.
We can’t provide advice, but may be able to signpost you to an organisation where you will be able to request advice in these areas.
We work closely with organisations which have a shared history with Benenden Health – for example, the Charity for Civil Servants, Rowland Hill Fund, Hospital Saturday Fund and BT Benevolent Fund.
We collect your personal information to enable us to fully consider your application and to discuss with you how we may be able to help. We will only share information with third parties (e.g. partner charities) when it may be of benefit to you and you have given your prior consent. View our Privacy policy.
You can speak with a member of our team by calling 0800 414 8450 (Monday – Friday 8am - 4pm) or you can email charitabletrust@benenden.co.uk.
You need to have the person’s full consent to make an enquiry on their behalf. If the person named in the application is not able to sign the form, the person applying on their behalf would be asked to provide documentation confirming that they are authorised to act on their behalf. This could be evidence of an active Power of Attorney or some other form of documentation such as a letter from the applicant him/herself or from the GP, DWHP or other official source.
We can only send an application form to the person who contacts us. We cannot send the form to anyone if they've not asked for it themselves, as it would be considered unsolicited mail.
No. We provide one-off grants to assist with a short-term problem, to help reduce clients’ dependency on charitable funds over time.
After we receive your enquiry, we’ll contact you within a few days to let you know we have received it. We may need further information in order to make a decision. The more information you can provide with your application, the quicker we can deal with it.
We'll write to you to acknowledge your application within three working days of receipt. If we need any more information we will contact you to ask for this. Once we have all the information we need, it usually takes around two to four weeks to reach a decision, but for complex requests it can take longer than this.
