Government plans to get long term sick back to work.

[Miley1967]

Does anyone have any information about how the Government are planning to get long term sick/ disabled back to work? I have read there is a paper being published/ announced this week. In my local area ( East Midlands) I have seen jobs advertised this week ( multiple jobs) for health and work coaches but employed through the NHS and based in Gp surgeries, so it does seem as though they are already taking steps to implement this.
Just a bit worried for some of my clients( I work in benefits advice work ) as to whether this is going to be pushed on them or if it's a scheme they will choose to be part of and just wondering what it is going to entail, will these coaches be working with employers who are genuinely going to be able to support this group of people into work?

I'm sorry you think that. The whole PCN system has actually been shown to increase productivity, reduce gp time and get people to be more pro active in helping themselves after a bit of a push.

It's not wishy washy chatting and agreeing. It's actually about making people take responsibility for themselves.

They could save a lot of money by getting rid of stupid repeated checks on people with chronic illness/disability whose GPs or consultants could tell you - once and only once - that this person will is unable to work, and you could take their word for it because they're a goddamn medical professional.

Where is your sense of fun ? It is much more amusing to drag people who can't walk to assessments in buildings with no ramps at least twice every year to face a panel of assessors (if they are lucky. I know people who got to the appointment and the building was closed. They were marked as "not attending") who aren't allowed to accept their copy of the claim form (which they don't have to work from) and then lose the certificate of blindness so they can report the claimant was fit and able.

I'm currently trying to secure the rights for 2025. Just need to wait for a slot in Ant and Decs diary.

@PandoraSox

Meanwhile, it is funny to see some Tory posters twisting in the wind over this. They hate benefit claimants on one hand, but don't want to be seen to agree with anything Labour does on the other.

So did Labour when they were in opposition. Constantly arguing against Tory proposals just for the sake of showing they were different, even with things they're now changed their mind on and are proposing themselves. All politicians are really the lowest of the low and the more you see, the more you realise they have no interest at all in what's best for the country - it's ALL about what's best for their party.

And where are these jobs? Meanwhile you've got people who can work struggling to find full time work

except for lockdown

See I think this depends if you’re talking about specific jobs, or just jobs in general. Part my old role used to be helping people back into work, I no longer do that but have colleagues who do and there are literally thousands of vacancies, but nobody wants to do “those” jobs. There are lots of full time jobs available, they just aren’t all particularly glamorous ones or big money ones. We would get sometimes 100+ people applying for 1 particular job, and yet we had 100’s of other vacancies also open for not being applied for.

I've read something saying they are going to target the under 25's who are not in the workplace, training or education. I think they call them NEET. Not in Education Employment Training. Then once they've got more of those doing something move on up the age groups so 26-35. I do think young people should be doing something with their lives. I appreciate some might be disabled but that doesn't necessarily mean a person can't work. It's the vast numbers of under 25's who are NEET that is the concern.

Exactly the same rhetoric back in the 90s They called it New Deal

I think a significant proportion ARE doing "something" with their lives, but the trouble is that it's often in the black economy, i.e. undeclared work, benefit fraud, tax evasion, etc. Whatever the government do, it won't hit those people if it's aimed at challenging dodgy benefit claims, or "back to work" initiatives. What it needed there is HMRC and police to work together to tackle such "lifestyle" crime.

Yet another attack on the disabled and chronically ill who are never going to be well enough to work no matter how much they are demonised and victimised by successions of governments and the inhumane rhetoric peddled by the Fail. Yet another attempt to force the vulnerable into workfare schemes and poverty/ homelessness. The Tories and Labour are both parties comprised of degenerate opportunistic money grabbing filth who couldn't govern their way out of a paper bag and both parties want to harm the vulnerable, elderly and disabled.

I have heard there are a few full time jobs signing petitions. Literally anyone or anything can get one.

You get paid in Roubles I believe.

It would be good if there were simple support staff on wards, sweeping up, dusting, bringing round tea, making beds, doing little useful things for patients like the old days. And allowing nurses to concentrate on being nurses, but I suspect that won't be what happens.

The main hospital in my nearest city's largest hospital is always short of cleaners, porters and other support staff since the bus services were cut and staff car-parks were removed.

There is a far bigger picture here than 'just' health and benefits. There's affordable transport, hours of availability tied in with unpaid caring roles and responsibilities at home, and people's vulnerabilities within the housing market to be fixed, for starters.

True. And this will more likely be an issue for their supporters

I don't think it'll come to much anyway like all Starmer's strongly worded smashing stuff lines. Thats not happening either

Or the claimant spends 6 hours a day every day at a benefits centre seeking employment, training or going back to education. They'd soon get fed up.

I have often thought this. No one is living a life of luxury on benefits and if they are someone should be finding where their income is coming from, because it's not benefits! Sanctions won't bother those people because it's just pocket money to them, but they will harm people who truly are unable to work, find a job or who have thy misfortune to miss a letter with an appointment on it (nb, it's crazy to rely on the mail for this in this day and age because a lot of post goes astray, also people who are depressed, have adhd, for example, may have difficulty opening their post regularly)

Making a quilt out of the patchwork of statements and triangulating a bit, I suspect the desire to investigate the increasing number of self diagnosed unwell people could be a thing.

I think that's a good suspicion.

Aligned with this I suspect there may be an intention (rightly or wrongly) that the UC50/PIP systems will be reformed so that written diagnoses are required, with claims which include such diagnoses going straight to cost-saving paper-based assessments, and other claims involving NHS waiting lists going to a mixture of telephone / video / in person assessments with medical professionals from more appropriate clinical backgrounds.

It was never going to work with physios / OTs assessing claims involving conditions such as major depressive episodes, ASD/ADHD related anxiety, long covid effects, and personality disorders.

My friend really wants to get back to work but he can't find anything
He has a foot injury which won't improve meaning he needs to be sat down most of the day
Basic computer skills but he's more of a practical person and not an office job type

It would be nice if - as well as expecting employers to pick up the slack of the NI rise - the chancellor also made them pick up their obligations under the Equality Act.

Maybe that's coming - possibly more a DWP initiative than Treasury.

Information isn't available yet but something needs to be done to help (and I mean help) those unable to work in the job they did retrained, I know someone who hasn't worked for 30 years! He can't do the job he did back then but could have done another if he had been offered proper support, too late for him, he's nearing retirement but for others with major injuries in their 20's & 30's they shouldn't be on the scrap heap

I suspect that benefits will be time-limited, as they are in most of Europe, except in cases of life-long permanent severe physical or intellectual disability.

They’re starting with under 25’s, then going onto working age higher age groups on sickness benefits.

They say they also want to look at the rocketing numbers of younger children on DLA.

We’ll have to wait and see.

If I were in charge (!) the biggest single change I would make would be to really ramp up education and create an environment where it's accepted that education is never ever "done". This would be backed up with a system that rather than fetishising exams taken at 16 and 18, recognises that everyone is an individual and some people who may not have achieved great GCSE/A level results at the expected age, may be more than capable at (say) 20. And that people who couldn't get a degree at 21 might be more than capable of studying for one (or beyond) at 31 or 41 or 51.

If you could provide that infrastructure behind an employment philosophy that encourages employers to engage and support employees adding value to their own knowledge as well as the employers, you could have the basis of a very potent workforce.

The only snag with this is it's hardly new or original, and I've met 75 year olds who thought it was a good idea when they started in education in the mid 60s.

That means people like me are fucked - I've been told it's highly unlikely I'll ever get a proper diagnosis. But my disabilities are just as valid as those who do have a diagnosis