People with type 2 diabetes can experience long-term complications including eye problems (retinopathy), damage to the nerves (neuropathy), kidney disease (nephropathy) and heart problems (cardiovascular disease). Several people we talked to wanted to know whether these complications were inevitable. Complications are not inevitable but the ability to avoid them may be beyond the person’s control […]

Most people turned to their parents to help them when they first noticed their acne. Parents or siblings were often the first to give advice and support. A few people said that their parents just saw acne as ‘normal’ in teenagers and were not concerned about it. Molly remembers her parents saw it as ‘just […]

Some of the young people we talked to felt psoriasis had an impact on their relationships with family members and at home, in both good ways and bad ways. Families helped by: being there to talk to if they’re feeling down applying treatments for them financial and practical support, including arranging appointments and paying for […]

In the UK, people who are employed but too ill to work are entitled to basic statutory sick pay for up to 28 weeks (for current rates see GOV.UK). These interviews were collected before the recent changes to the benefit system, so in some cases talk about Incapacity Benefit and Disability Living Allowance, which have […]

Parents described how having a baby who needed surgery sometimes had a big impact on their finances and working lives, both when their baby was still in hospital, and after they came home. Financial impact ‘It’s expensive being in hospital. Spend a week in hospital and essentially you’ve spent a few hundred pounds.’ Mike Several […]

Many of the people we talked to had found it difficult to continue work because of their pain. Expectations and plans often had to be drastically revised, which left people feeling frustrated and disappointed (see also ‘Unemployment and return to work‘). These interviews were conducted before the 2015 benefit changes but a lot of the […]

For many people we interviewed there were financial implications of living with Multiple Sclerosis (MS) when the household income was reduced because of unemployment, part-time working or retirement. A few older people felt lucky to be financially secure because of having good pensions, a very generous employer or, for one person, long term investments which […]

Cancer can disrupt many aspects of life, including household finances and budgets. For many people, financial issues resolve soon after treatment, but having had cancer meant that some of the people we interviewed were living with on-going financial difficulties. The reasons for these difficulties varied, but included a loss of income due to early retirement, […]

Here we discuss what people told us about how their care was funded and how they went about choosing a clinic. We spoke to people who had only had NHS care, some who had only private treatment and others who had used a mixture of private and NHS care. Funding Eligibility for NHS funding in […]

Need help now? Need to cover your tracks online? CLICK HERE To exit the site CLICK HERE Abusive partners can, and often do, isolate women from their family and friends, but when talking about help-seeking in previous research many women identified their families and friends as a source of support. Recent research has shown, however, […]