Parents renew calls for Hugh's Law, furlough-like help for families going through cancer

  • Hugh Menai-Davis died from cancer at just six years old.

The parents of a six-year-old boy who died from cancer are renewing their calls for furlough-like help for families with seriously sick children.

Ceri and Frances Menai-Davis, who lost their son Hugh in 2021, re-submitted a petition to Downing Street on Monday, calling for the creation of Hugh's Law.

Earlier this year, ministers had starting looking at his proposal but work stalled after the change in government in July.

When Hugh was diagnosed it was "heartbreaking and heartwrenching", his father said, but the family also found the costs adding up.

Frances Menai-Davis and son Hugh in hospital Credit: Family handout

The family, from Hertford in Hertfordshire, were travelling 100 miles each day to get their son to Addenbrooke's Hospital in Cambridge for treatment.

Mr Menai-Davis said: "I worked it out, on a monthly basis, it costs over £1,000 a month to look after your child.

"It's not just a case of eating, but obviously your child is having chemotherapy, as a parent, you'd give them anything.

"And if he said to me, 'Daddy, I fancy a rock from Mars, I'd find a way to get to Elon Musk to get in a spaceship to get there."

Hugh's father Ceri Menai-Davis tells ITV Anglia his proposal would take parents 'from struggling to just coping'

Mr Menai-Davis said the financial help he is calling for from the new Labour government - £750 to £1,000 a month - would take parents "from struggling to just coping".

Research by the Young Lives Versus Cancer charity has shown it can cost almost £700 extra each month for parents during their child's cancer treatment.

Mr Menai-Davis said it was easy for working parents to go from thought-out plans to pay mortgages and bills, "to all of a sudden sitting a hospital for an unknown period of time and there's nothing available for you".

Hugh Menai-Davis Credit: Family handout

He is calling on Labour to set aside money in the Budget for parents to get financial help from day one of the diagnosis.

The campaign said the current options for parents were:

  • Means-tested Universal Credit;

  • Disability Living Allowance (which can only be used for three months after diagnosis and takes 20 weeks to process);

  • and 18 weeks of unpaid parental leave (taken in four-week blocks).

Mr Menai-Davis said: "It's for those who go to work, those who are employed, those who are self-employed.

"These parents find themselves in these positions through no fault of their own that they have no money.

"If that works stops, and your life is pressed on pause, there's nothing available for you, you can't access anything.

"We just think these parents should be taken from struggling to just coping and it's also taking a burden off their shoulders.

"We've experienced it, sitting next to your child in hospital is probably the worst thing you can ever imagine."

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