People struggling with benefit and debt problems will soon be given a helping hand by GP surgeries in Bradford.

One of the biggest Health Action Zone projects in Bradford is set to install advice workers in practices across the city by the end of the year.

The £500,000 a year Health Plus initiative, run by the Bradford City Primary Care Group, will allow registered patients to talk to qualified advice workers about personal and financial problems which can often be the root cause of poor health and depression.

Welfare rights worker Nick Hodgkinson from the health project Heartsmart said: "If a person is in debt, they're not going to concentrate on healthy eating. And time after time research shows that elderly people do not claim what they are entitled to.

"The Citizen's Advice Bureau is packed and some people can't physically get to it. We want to advise people where people go."

The service will also offer home visits for people too ill to leave their house and a referral system where specialist advisers will advise and represent clients on complicated legal matters.

Bradford City PCG is looking to appoint a co-ordinator for the project. A similar scheme is already up and running in the Keighley area where CAB primary health care worker Barbara Smith visits six GP surgeries in the Airedale area.

She said the feedback from both patients and doctors was very positive and that the main advantage was better access to advice for the disabled and the elderly.

She said: "We have quite a wide remit from advising on benefits, appeals for disability allowances, debt advice, and family and personal matters to childcare, housing and landlord issues and even consumer problems about faulty goods.

"Often people will take advice from a doctor because it doesn't stigmatise it."

Information on the Keighley advice sessions can be obtained by calling (01535) 661230.

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