Please can you help Tim Sears ?

Tim Sears is a fellow Class 1 Driver. He currently lives in Church Stretton, Shropshire. For you old timers who remember. Actually on the old Swains of Stretton haulage yard at Crossways.

He has been my friend for the last six years. I met Tim when we were both working for Maidens of Telford.

Until very recently. Tim has been driving regularly up and down the roads. He recently had a large tumor removed from his behind his right shoulder. This has now been removed, but he has been diagnosed with a type 4 Melanoma which has sadly spread to his internal organs. To be honest the future diagnosis is not encouraging. Tim’s condition is incurable. But he can have immune boosting drugs, which may slow down the progress of his cancer and prolong his life albeit temporarily.

Sadly, beyond what his Doctors can or cannot do. Tim’s health lies purely in their hands. His family and friends can only hope that the outcome will be for the best.

The point of me sharing this post is this;

Tim is currently living off Statutory Sick Pay, which I believe is around £79 per week. Anyone will realize that this is barely enough to exist on. Out of this figure, Tim needs to pay;

His Rent
His Food Bills
Run His Car ( Travelling an 80 mile round trip to Queen Elizabeth Hospital, Birmingham to get treatment, sometimes twice weekly )
Support Himself And Contribute To The Upkeep Of His Children

Most of you will realize, that this is an almost impossible situation to find yourself in. Certainly circumstances that don’t help him get any better.

It could so easily be you or I in this situation. As people say. " There but for the grace of God, go I "

So to try and help my friend and fellow driver. I have set up a donations page at the following web address to encourage people to help Tim in his time of need;

leetchi.com/c/charity-nonprofit-tim-sears

I am trying to raise £10,000 over the next six months. To try and supplement the lack of wages. So that Tim can fight his cancer as best he can and not have to worry to much about making ends meet.

I’m sure that both Tim and myself would be very grateful for anything we can raise to help him survive the next few months. We will review the situation and see what is needed at that time.

£10,000 is a lot of money to ask. A lot to expect from working people’s kindness. So I am trying to promote this as far and wide as I possibly can.

If you can see fit to donate. I am asking for donations starting at £5.00. If that is beyond you, then please could you share this link on social media as far and wide as possible.

All donations will go directly for Tim’s benefit, except for 4% transaction fees which are payable when funds are paid to TIm. There is no Gift Aid, no middle men’s fees. It’s that simple.

Thank you to everyone who reads this, and if all you can do is share it ? Please be kind enough to do so.
We all sail financially " close to the wind" . It could so easily be you or I in this situation.

Let’s see if we can help a fellow driver, when he needs it most ?

Thank you very much

Nope.

A.

Does he not have life insurance?
If so then I hope he is aware that if you are diagnosed with a terminal illness then his life insurance company will pay out the policy once they have gathered the necessary information from the doctors ect,this is a relatively quick process my wife’s claim took 4 weeks in total from me making the initial call to them paying out.
A lot of people don’t realise life insurance will pay out on diagnosis.
Without this we would of been in real trouble having only just moved into a new build property 10 months before my wife’s illness was discovered,having the insurance has allowed us to forget about money and for me to take however long necessary off work,11 months so far, to look after my wife and our 10 year old son.
I sincerely hope he does have something in place and he didn’t realise he can claim on diagnosis.
Also McMillan do grants for those with cancer that are struggling financially.

He needs to contact universal credit and fast .And contact his local council for help with the rent and council tax help .
Also the citizens advice can point him in a good direction for help while suffering cancer or any type of deabilitating ilness that stops you earning to pay the basics .

I’m assuming if he’s on sick pay he is still technically employed? Best advice would be to see if he can go onto ESA and housing benefit which would give him more than SSP ever will. Think ESA is around £110 a week for someone in the support group (which a terminal illness would be). Get him down to Citizens Advice or local Welfare rights if you can.

This is one time where the state really ought to do its bit and ease his financial worry if nothing else.

He is not getting the financial assistance he should be for a person in his circumstances, try these people.

turn2us.org.uk/

Good luck sir.

The quickest way to get money from the state is claim to fallen from the back of a lorry and no speak English pockets soon be lined.
On a serious note as others have said citizen advice or if rent from housing association they will have advisors on every thing that can be claimed.

Sent from my SM-G920F using Tapatalk

He needs to move off SSP and onto other benefits.

The benefits and/or the disability boards on MSE would be good starting points amongst the other links that people have put up.

For others, may I suggest an insurance against suffering financial hardship; I have both income protection and critical illness to cover such events.

I wish your mate well, he does have quite a few options other than just SSP to help him out.

xichrisxi:
Does he not have life insurance?
If so then I hope he is aware that if you are diagnosed with a terminal illness then his life insurance company will pay out the policy once they have gathered the necessary information from the doctors ect,this is a relatively quick process my wife’s claim took 4 weeks in total from me making the initial call to them paying out.
A lot of people don’t realise life insurance will pay out on diagnosis.
Without this we would of been in real trouble having only just moved into a new build property 10 months before my wife’s illness was discovered,having the insurance has allowed us to forget about money and for me to take however long necessary off work,11 months so far, to look after my wife and our 10 year old son.
I sincerely hope he does have something in place and he didn’t realise he can claim on diagnosis.
Also McMillan do grants for those with cancer that are struggling financially.

Surely if he’s employed he’ll have some kind of death in service benefit from the company who should be able to settle up early if its a terminal prognosis, ive also got critical Illness cover which admittedly reduces as I get older and my mortgage gets smaller but it’s still a tidy lump .

Asuming he’s 50yrs+ ageUK will assist him with advice on available benefits and filling the forms in for him when applying for those benefits. AgeUK helped me when I became a carer for my father, as well as proving support for both of us.

pda-uk.org/

Thanks for all your constructive comments.

Obviously any help is good and all options should be considered.

The trouble is, that when you’re chronically ill and then have to fight the bureaucracy of the DWP.
It doesn’t take long to wear you down. Thankfully Tim has a few good neighbours and his kids to get him through the basics.
His local councillors are trying to help him, the best they can. But he’s gone from earning a full wage down to SSP in one go.
Obviously that’s a tremendous kick

He’s in a limbo phase, where he’s just started treatment. Superficially he looks better at the moment than he’s done for months.
But no doubt as the treatment takes hold, he will deteriorate. I’m just trying to help him fill the gaps.

I will take away the information, you’ve shared and see what I can do with it. Many thanks for your help.

I’m also pleased to say, that we’ve managed to raise our first £ 70.00 through donations.

Cheers folks

As you’ve probably figured out there are people here that have been through the same thing, which is why they can point the way to those who can and will assist him gaining the help he requires, he may also benefit from contacting his local councils occupational health dept who should be able to come out and do an assessment for anything he may need in the home. It’s a long shot (but it’s the case with dementia etc) he maybe able to apply to the council for exemption from Council tax if there is just 2 people living in the home, this may mean that they would only count 1 person living in the home and apply a 25% reduction in CT, however if there are other adults living there (adult children on the electoral register) then this wouldn’t apply.
There is also likely a message board / forum on the more specific websites ie: Macmillan etc, where more targeted advice on how to get help can be found

This may seem harsh but go fund me is a business that you have already said charge 4%, some benefits are means tested so by donating a stash of money could actually harm Tim. Go to citizens advice first, contact the mortgage company and DWP

Wheel Nut 3:
This may seem harsh but go fund me is a business that you have already said charge 4%, some benefits are means tested so by donating a stash of money could actually harm Tim. Go to citizens advice first, contact the mortgage company and DWP

This is a very good point,if you have over 6K in the bank you won’t get a lot of benefits so as wheel nut said if you did raise him a stack of cash it could be detrimental to him if he needs to claim.

Mike Lewis:
Thanks for all your constructive comments.

Obviously any help is good and all options should be considered.

The trouble is, that when you’re chronically ill and then have to fight the bureaucracy of the DWP.
It doesn’t take long to wear you down. Thankfully Tim has a few good neighbours and his kids to get him through the basics.
His local councillors are trying to help him, the best they can. But he’s gone from earning a full wage down to SSP in one go.
Obviously that’s a tremendous kick

He’s in a limbo phase, where he’s just started treatment. Superficially he looks better at the moment than he’s done for months.
But no doubt as the treatment takes hold, he will deteriorate. I’m just trying to help him fill the gaps.

I will take away the information, you’ve shared and see what I can do with it. Many thanks for your help.

I’m also pleased to say, that we’ve managed to raise our first £ 70.00 through donations.

Cheers folks

Hello . Sorry to hear about your friends health problems . Whilst the DWP do have lots of bureaucracy it is ofcourse necessary in order to prevent fraud . I have recently spend a considerable amount of time helping a friend who was sectioned under the mental health act . It was necessary to fill in numerous forms . However once the final stage was complete I scanned sick notes at 4.30 pm , received a phone call next morning at 9 10 am and the money was in their account at mid day. It did however take 4 months to set the claim up but once complete you do not need to do iy again .

Just pointed 500 quid in your direction to help out until you get your benefits sorted.

Adonis.:
Nope.

A.

OK

Not trying to make anyone feel uncomfortable or to start a competition. Had a nice little win on the GG’s and only too willing to share it here. Otherwise I would probably have given 10 or 20. All the best Tim.

onesock:

Adonis.:
Nope.

A.

OK

Seasons greetings to you onesock.

Unfortunately, I can’t match your generous offer.

It seems that for every antagonistic comment posted on here, there are decent people like yourself.

The antagonistic troll knows who he is.

Well done again Onesock!