To think part of the increase in long term sickness is the increase in retirement age?

What I hate are the smug posts implying that if only everyone lived like this and copy the poster, they’d never get ill (I think the pp mentioned she never gets colds) without thinking that life is more complex
I don't think anyone says that following a healthy lifestyle systematically mean you won't ever get ill or injured. You'd have to be quite uneducated to believe this.

However, if you are to believe the majority of posters, the inability to work is never down to unhealthy lifestyles but bad luck, even though all the evidence is here to show that poor lifestyle choice is the main issue and a continuous serious concern. The NHS is overwhelmed trying to treat people who need regular and ongoing care that is the result of poor lifestyle.

I think statistics now show that almost half of people are overweight or obese, and there are more overweight people than people within the recommended weight margins. This is very scary.

This is what we need to talk about, not the rarer cases who are sadly unlucky indeed and struggle accessing NHS care.

From the staff at my school, it’s those in their 30s that seem to take the most time off work, but they are trying to teach full time, either as the sole earner, or with a partner also working full time, paying an absolute fortune in both childcare and mortgage payments each month, with no family to rely on (as their parents are in their 50s, also working full time). Nursery are continually sending kids home with coughs/bugs and they have to look after them. I don’t think they are lazy, they are just desperate.

Interestingly , I can’t comment on the absence levels of teachers over 57 as we don’t have any-they have all left or taken early retirement whilst they were on the old pension scheme. Who knows what the staffing will look like when a huge bulk of them are over this age? Will teachers from 58-67 have exemplary sickness levels as they are tough old boots, or will they just be exhausted and with years still to go?!

Did you put your age on your CV ?

Re the state pension :

DH took early retirement deal (manual job) at 59, therefore stopped paying NI contributions. He had worked since the age of 16 with no breaks.

He was told he didn’t have enough contributions to qualify for the full state pension. He had worked full time for 43 years. He has had to pay the remaining 7 years in order to get the full state pension, approx £900 per year in missing NI contributions.

My point is that the 35 years qualifier for the full pension is misleading! And if you come out of work early you won’t get the full state pension at 66/67 unless you make up that National Insurance shortfall.

I do hate this sort of unutterable self-satisfied smugness, which is very prevalent amongst the comments that follow articles in the Tory press. I know so many people who have lived exemplary lives, eaten well, exercised etc. etc. and died suddenly in their 60s. I know others who have continually burnt the candle at both ends, smoked, drank, taken drugs and lived to enjoy a ripe old age. And although there's no harm in keeping yourself as fit and healthy as you can, there really aren't any guarantees.

It's often the things that we can't control that cause the most damage - a freak accident, an unexpected illness, a sudden bereavement, a relationship breakdown, the illness of a close family member, the death of a child, the loss of a job, all of which can wreak havoc with our physical and/or mental health and our finances. If I were you Ginmonkey, I'd be fervently hoping that nothing untoward happens to either me or my older husband, because believe me, there's very little any of us can do to mitigate the effects that come at us out of leftfield.

And frankly, I don't think there's anything remarkable about your activity and fitness levels at 46 - Jeeze, I was in the best shape of my life in my 40s - just give it five years and see what the menopause does to you!

Perhaps we need to start looking at adult education and skills training and encouraging people to move into teaching as they get older

You try teaching a class of 30 five year olds, one needing hoisting, 2 non-verbal needing nappies changing, dodging pupils biting and throwing chairs and constantly bending down over tiny chairs and people day in day out!

I really can’t imagine many knackered older people wanting to do this!

I have long Covid and went to one of the long Covid clinics and they are full of young people

I hadn't had a day off sick from work in about 10 years and then I got Covid incredibly mildly but just never got better

I can work a bit but I'm lucky my job isn't manual in any way because if it was, I couldn't do it

And that's just long COVID (which in itself is truly dreadful and disabling for many).

COVID has also triggered or worsened other conditions in many (eg. Autoimmune conditions.) and my charity is also helping a number of people with grants after they developed serious heart conditions following COVID infections.

I have had my condition (Myasthenia) my whole adult life at least but it has been much worse since a bad bout of COVID 3 years ago. And I know lots of people who have experienced the same (or who only first got myasthenia symptoms after a COVID infection)

Not really, for many reasons like RSI and work related injuries. There’s also a difference between work-related activity vs leisure-related activity in terms of health benefits.

But as I said, it’s complicated as manual jobs are often done by people with other demographic factors that affect their health.

Yeah, I agree with you as lots of young people got long covid. It’s not like long covid only affected older ages.

YANBU, the #1 risk factor for work limiting health conditions is age, not life-style. The older you get, the more likely you will acquire a disability. There is a limit to how far up they can push state pension age because people will just be de facto retired on out of work benefits due to their poor health.

Something like 1.99 m people have Long Covid.

So it does count for a lot.

Agree. Just because we are living longer it doesn't mean we can do the physical work past 60/65.

My mum died at 73. Before that she had chronic COPD and macular degeneration. From her mid 60's she wasn't capable of working due to these conditions so would have been on long term sick until retirement at the age it now is.

I'm approaching 50 and genininely can't see myself working in early years in my 60s I'm already struggling with knee pain from getting up and down off the floor and small chairs and just the general hypervigalance you need to watch a roomful of under 5s is exhausting.

Long covid must count for a lot
No it really doesn't! Especially amongst young people.

The wages in this country are so poor in comparison to France, Germany, Sweden etc, it's shameful
Not really when cost of living is higher there. They complain of the same issues.

I think people are getting “lazier” because there is less incentive. Low wages mean you’re working to survive, with no holidays or ability to save towards a house. It’s demoralising selling your body - your physical and mental fitness - for so little in return.

I wouldn’t have been able to work since covid as I developed an auto immune disease and the NHS didn’t actually provide any treatment. Hopefully after my next treatment I should be back to normal and if it hadn’t been for my GP demanding I got some treatment I would have been stuck being very ill. I’m self employed so have managed. I’m also in secure cheap housing.

The NHS waiting lists and lack of GP appointments mean minor issues become major ones and The cost of housing, rented or mortgaged and relatively low wages have led to this point.

This only applies to those claiming the new state pension that came into being in April 2016. Those who retired before 2016 are only entitled to £169.50 a week as opposed to the £221.20 a week that is payable to today's retirees. If the state pension is their only form of income, the earlier cohort can claim pension credit to bring their earnings up to £218.15 a week if single, and £332.95 if living as a couple.

This.

The wages in this country are so poor in comparison to France, Germany, Sweden etc, it's shameful.

Also the state pensions are practically the worst in the western world, and combined with a cost of living crisis, it's not looking good for old people.

So I think a lot of people, young and old, are technically taking their "retirement" now, and letting the state pay. No point in working if you can't support yourself on the wages.

And we're not talking about the underclass here, we're talking about normal hardworking people who have simply had enough and can't take the strain anymore.

Long covid must count for a lot

You've contradicted yourself.
You have a private pension, so don't have to struggle on a state pension.
Are you stating that those who haven't a complete record of contribution should receive less state pension than you? People...especially women......who don't have a complete record have often been caring for someone. Without a full, albeit meagre, state pension, how would they survive? The welfare system is based on each according to their need, not contribution. We all pay, some more than others. Some people have little illness or hospital treatment; it's insurance.

Your post interested me because after many years of running my own business and then working as a freelance since I turned 65, I took on a temporary full-time contract to cover maternity leave last year, which lasted for six months. The contract meant that I was doing the same type of work that I have been doing for the last 30 years, but I had to get to grips with a new computer system and also from working from home every day from 9.00 to 5.30. God, it was an eye-opener! Obviously, in my 70s I'm much slower than I was in my heyday and I have less energy, but I was staggered by the amount of things I was expected to accomplish for a very basic salary. In fact, the load was so onerous that I had to start an hour earlier every morning, finish an hour later and work through every weekend just to keep up. When the contract ended just before Christmas I was practically on my knees. And as you say so much of the extra load was bullshit - almost as if the company had gone out of its way to make things as difficult as possible with endless complex systems to navigate. Every day, I felt as if I was being asked to paint my hall, stairs and landing through the letterbox with a worn toothbrush. It was a smallish company - around 30 employees in total and everybody was expected to do the work of at least two people and consistently hit very tight deadlines. There were no proper plans or strategies in place and really important decisions were made on the hoof and instructions were frequently changed on the "Yes we do it like that but only if it's the third week after Michelmas, there's a full moon and it hasn't rained for three days - if it isn't we do it differently!" principle. If this is representative of today's office culture, I'm not surprised that people are suffering from burn-out and increasingly poor physical and mental health. Towards the end of my tenure, I had become a nervous wreck and after working consistently since the age of 16 and putting in regular 60-hour weeks when I had my own business, I can assure you that I'm no sissy!

I think it's a complex issue, keeping wages artificially low for so long, increasing retirement age and current issues within the NHS are all contributing to the issue of long term sickness.
This is for some people, but not all as there is also a % that is genie unable to work.

But how can we judge, sort and encourage people who claim to be unable to work into work? How can we encourage employers to employ someone who has been out of work for months and years?
...

We have a mental health crisis where most young people are unable to access the help that they need in a timely fashion (CAMHS services hugely inadequate).

There are long wait times for people signed off work for physio, surgery, talking therapies, consultant appointments.

It seems obvious that addressing this promptly and effectively makes sense both for the individuals affected, their families, employers and the wider economy.

Yet the government is not taking effective action and instead is putting the blame on individuals for being economically inactive. What a joke.

I think it’s partly because of the long queues for NHS treatment. If they cured people quicker they could get back to work. Article on BBC website blames chronic pain, obesity related illnesses and mental health issues

My work has changed massively since I started over 20 yrs ago. Lots of roles have been cut so the workload is higher. Emails are a total menace because they are so easy to send, you are copied into so many and people expect you to deal outside work hours. The quantity of pointless paper work that no one ever reads and that doesn’t improve anyone’s life is soul destroying Everything is taken extremely seriously and expectations are unrealistic. It used to be more fun. Loads of people at my work are off sick. Basically our work environment is too tough so add anything bad outside work and it sends people over the edge.