Providing welfare rights advice in primary care

To evaluate the introduction of dedicated open access welfare rights advice sessions in a general practice setting.

A retrospective study of 416 client visits over a 11 month period from August 1995. A prospective questionnaire survey of 34 attendees over a three month period from April 1996. Semi-structured interviews with 11 involved primary care staff.

An inner city health centre.

Social characteristics of clients attending; problems presented; benefit uptake; views from the health centre staff and welfare rights advisers and comments on future development.

A total of 270 new clients used the service during the study period with 146 repeat visits (35%). Of the new clients, 158 out of 270 (59%) reported that they were disabled and 50% of the 158 had specific disability based welfare rights enquiries. 15% of new clients (40 out of 270) were found to be owed money by the current benefit system. Of these, 24 clients obtained one-off payments totalling ł15,863 and 16 clients obtained regular payments totalling ł539 a week. 58% of interviewed clients had not previously accessed any welfare rights advisory services. The welfare rights service was considered by the primary health care team to be a very useful contribution in a highly deprived area.

The advice service increased the uptake of social security benefits in 15% of all new attendees. An open access service may not have been the most efficient method of delivering such advice. However, the high proportion of new clients who reported having a disability suggested that a health centre setting may be particularly accessible for those reporting disability. Further work is required to explore these findings and the most effective and efficient method of delivering the service in a deprived inner city setting.