{"id":539514,"date":"2026-04-19T14:23:10","date_gmt":"2026-04-19T14:23:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/539514\/"},"modified":"2026-04-19T14:23:10","modified_gmt":"2026-04-19T14:23:10","slug":"dwp-benefits-alert-over-payments-for-people-with-mental-health-problem","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/539514\/","title":{"rendered":"DWP benefits alert over payments for people with mental health problem"},"content":{"rendered":"

MPs have discussed making DWP benefits more accessible for people during a recent Treasury Committee meeting.\"MPs<\/p>\n

MPs have discussed making DWP benefits more accessible for people during a recent Treasury Committee meeting.<\/p>\n

The Department for Work and Pensions could be set to enhance access to benefits for people struggling to claim. MPs have discussed making DWP<\/a> benefits more accessible for people during a recent Treasury Committee meeting.<\/p>\n

MPs discussed the Government’s Financial Inclusion Strategy, a policy aimed at boosting financial engagement and awareness of the support available to people.<\/p>\n

Helen Undy, chief executive of the Money and Mental Health Policy Institute, told the Committee: “The bit that could have gone in this strategy that is missing is around how you address the \u00a324billion a year of unclaimed benefits-that figure is from Policy in Practice.”<\/p>\n

READ MORE Major 1990s favourite retail chain shutting stores across UK with 80% off<\/a><\/p>\n

She added: “We should be talking about how we increase access to income maximisation support for people who are financially excluded and who are living on low incomes. I would like to have seen that in the section of the strategy that talks about debt advice.”<\/p>\n

Ms Undy urged: “Our research suggests that, particularly for people with more complex needs, like mental health problems, having access to an individual-face to face, ideally, or over the telephone-who can give them income maximisation support can be transformational.<\/p>\n

“That is a key thing that I think is missing in the strategy, but that we could still go further on. I would like to see more on that.”<\/p>\n

Helen is Chief Executive of the Money and Mental Health Policy Institute, the research charity set up by Martin Lewis to better understand and tackle the link between financial difficulty and mental health problems.<\/p>\n

Since its inception in 2016, the charity has become a leading voice on issues from debt to impulsive spending, mental health services, consumer protection and the potential for big data and open banking for vulnerable customers.<\/p>\n

Helen sits on the advisory group to the board of the Money and Pensions Service, the Government\u2019s Financial Inclusion Policy Forum, the UK Finance Consumer Advisory Group and the Advisory Board for suicide prevention charity Jonathan\u2019s Voice.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"MPs have discussed making DWP benefits more accessible for people during a recent Treasury Committee meeting. MPs have…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":539515,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[44],"tags":[2215,102,1906,6623,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-539514","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mental-health","8":"tag-dwp","9":"tag-health","10":"tag-mental-health","11":"tag-mentalhealth","12":"tag-uk","13":"tag-united-kingdom","14":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/539514","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=539514"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/539514\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/539515"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=539514"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=539514"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=539514"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}