MEDICAL patients will be offered financial advice from a poverty-tackling project set up in a York doctors’ surgery.
A service has been set up at the Priory Medical Centre in Cornlands Road in Acomb to help increase the weekly income of people suffering financial hardship.
The Future Prospects service will help people to take advantage of the services and benefits they are entitled to and to find work.
Sadia Muhammed, a GP at the surgery, said: “The GPs and nurses working here have long recognised the health problems which can arise or be worsened by financial hardship. We have wanted to provide this type of advice service for some time now and are delighted to be part of a joint project which will help individual patients and raise awareness locally as well.”
Patients at the Priory Medical Centre will be referred to the weekly service by their GPs or can book appointments themselves.
Doctors will particularly identify those with health issues and disabilities who may be missing out on extra money. The project aims to replicate the work of the Kingsway West and Foxwood Action project, which was hailed a success for helping people in deprived areas to find training and jobs and apply for benefits.
The service is jointly funded by City of York Council, the Railway Housing Trust, Joseph Rowntree Foundation and Priory Medical Group itself.
Patients can book an appointment by calling in or telephoning ringing the Priory Medical Centre.
Appointments can be booked with Pauline Golden, a welfare benefits adviser employed by Future Prospects.
Helping those most in need
THE links between poverty and ill-health are well established.
So what better place to offer financial advice than in a doctors’ surgery?
Future Prospects is setting up a service at the Priory Medical Centre in Acomb’s Cornlands Road that will offer both advice on how to increase your weekly income and help in finding work.
The scheme is an extension of the Kingsway West and Foxwood Action Project, which aims to tackle poverty and reduce unemployment. By taking advice and help into the community, the project has already achieved dramatic reductions in unemployment in the area.
Going into a doctors’ surgery is the logical next step.
Dr Sadia Muhammed, a GP at the centre, said staff had long recognised health problems could be worsened by financial hardship.
“We have wanted to provide this type of advice service for some time now,” she said.
The best thing about this scheme is that it clearly aims to target advice at the people most in need – people who are often the hardest to reach.
The scheme is jointly funded by the city council, the Railway Housing Trust, the Joseph Rowntree Foundation and the Priory Medical Group itself.
All are to be congratulated for a truly innovative scheme which may just reach those who need the help most.
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