Health Grant – Latest Report

The final report of the 3-year pilot study has now been published, which confirms the earlier reports of health deterioration among Thalidomiders and shows the wide range of uses to which beneficiaries have put their Health Grant funds. The main areas of expenditure are housing and mobility, and the report shows how much this money has helped people to improve their lives.

Excerpt:

Over the three years of the Health Grant evaluation a number of clear themes have emerged. The final year of the evaluation has confirmed and developed them, as well as highlighting wider issues about the potential of the Health Grant ‘model’ for addressing the health needs of other groups of people with rare conditions or specialist needs.
Thalidomide-impaired people are experiencing deterioration in their health. In the final year of the evaluation, concerns about further deterioration and new or additional health problems were again evident.

For many people the things they had been able to do, or the lifestyle changes they had been able to make, as a result of the Health Grant, were helping to either slow down this deterioration or at least enable people to manage it. People felt the impact of the Health Grant had been overwhelmingly positive, even “life changing”

 

Latest information about the Government Health Grant