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?

This is a good idea. I read about article about dozens of nurses off sick waiting for knee replacements or back surgery - these are occupationally caused health conditions.

I think this the way forward.
Lots of people wanting to return to work but can't as they are awaiting treatment.
Life on benefits is shit. I have not worked or 14 years due to MH issues (sacked from the NHS, before anyone says they need staff), so am well aware of how crap it is.
Sorting the NHS waiting list will help with a lot of people, but not so much for those who have been off sick for years/decades. At that point, the real barrier is employers. What employer is going to take on someone who has been out for the workforce for years? Is it fair to sanction someone for not getting a job in a certain timeframe, when no fucker would actually give them a chance anyway?

I agree. And the fact that not-working has increased so very quickly since COVID does invite suspicion. The "it's all long COVID" does not really make sense; COVID has done the rounds everywhere, yet the sharp increase in non-working since COVID is mostly a UK thing and has not really been a thing in other countries.

I think there has been an overly passive and enabling approach towards vagely-defined anxiety and depression - ie, the idea that if you find talking to people or doing things on the phone or leaving your house stressful, then "avoiding doing these things" is helpful and an act of self-care. Thankfully there has been some pushback, but a couple of years ago, this kind of stuff was rampant on social media and is still a big problem.

Do you think that a cut in someone's benefits would magically make them better?

That is obviously going to depend on what is wrong with them.

Some people have actual psychiatric issues or similar.

I've also seen quite a few posts on here (and some real-life cases as well) where a son/daughter/wife/husband is vaguely depressed and anxious, hanging out at home a lot, not doing an awful lot to try to deal with their issues, and spending a striking amount of time in the house on screens or doing hobbies. A boot in the bum might be helpful in such cases.

The stuff you're saying about long COVID now, people used to say about ME. There was even a trial that seemed to prove that people could overcome ME if they just tried hard enough. The trial was fraudulent.

Lockdown drove a steamroller through everyone's lives and some people who were just about coping with anxiety about going outside will have been pushed beyond what they can cope with. Waiting lists for mental health assessments and therapy are measured in years, so it's not surprising that some people haven't psychologically recovered yet.

Again, the answer is more treatment provision so that people can be treated sooner.

I'm perfectly aware that LC can exist. The point I am making is that "All the increase in non-working must be LC!" makes little sense, since we have not seen similar increases in other countries, where COVID also did the rounds among the population.

I think there are a number of things going on here, but I think we need to be honest about the fact that some people are not coping well with social setups that essentially allow them to spend their days indoors, isolated, on screens and talking vaguely about how anxious and depressed they are.

There's quite a stringent process for getting ESA or PIP. You need medical evidence and often have an assessment.

You're suggesting that there are loads of limp wristed people on benefits who just need to get out more. I hate to burst your bubble but you're unlikely to get benefits because you're a bit down and want to go on MN.

OP if you work in benefits advice surely you would be one of the first groups of people to know the answer to your own question.

For a lot of people support to get back to work in some capacity would benefit their mental health and consigning people with mental illness to a life on benefits is not in fact kind or helpful to them.

The waiting list for an initial assessment in our area is 6-8 weeks not many months or years. The waiting list for CBT is then a further 2-3 months. Decent basic treatment for anxiety and depression is available fairly quickly as is treatment for serious mental illness eg schizophrenia, bipolar, severe OCD. Yes it will be basic CBT because the NHS can't possibly afford for everyone who wants it to see a very highly qualified clinical psychologist 1:1 and for most conditions CBT is effective.

Avoidance is a powerful maintaining factor in anxiety and depression and for many people getting back to work is in itself positive for their mental health and a good treatment. Behavioural activation and graded exposure are very good treatments for mood disorders. Getting entrenched in never going out, seeing anyone or doing anything and often using drugs and alcohol makes it really hard for any medication or therapy to work.

Where it gets tricky is

ASD/ ADHD- these are not mental illnesses they are neurodevelopmental disorders. There is not a functioning system for diagnosis or treatment of adults. There never has been but now there is a demand that has no hope of ever being met on current resources. In the case of ASD having a diagnosis would not open up any further avenue of treatment in any case. Here it's going to be about reasonable adjustments to be able to work.

Trauma- especially of a complex nature and personality disorder. These don't respond well to medication and need specialist long term therapy which the NHS cannot afford. Waiting lists can be very long for this kind of treatment and it often isn't fully effective. Maybe we need to resurrect SureStart and invest more in children's social care so that there are less people suffering the lifelong effects of childhood neglect and abuse.

For some MH conditions they will need to be managed as a long term disability with reasonable adjustments to allow people to work but in most cases (or certainly many more than currently) it would be possible and beneficial for people to work.

Mental health services do not have the answer in isolation to many of the complex multifaceted problems that are bundled up as 'mental health' nowadays. We know what to do with schizophrenia but some of the other stuff we are going to need education, social care, criminal justice, housing etc etc to all work together to find solutions. I am beyond sick of being asked to solve issues of poverty and social deprivation armed with only a packet of pills and a sympathetic head tilt.

Honestly, as an employer, with the new rules coming in making it incredibly difficult to move on employees who aren’t up to scratch, there is no way I would take a risk on someone who had been out of work for an extended period. I would have in the past, but for a small employer, to risk being sued for disability discrimination is just not a risk we could afford to take, having been burned by this before.

Hopefully big businesses will step in though as I fully appreciate how unfair that is.

And I will say, we employ two neurodivergent people, one with significant caring responsibilities, and three women with primary aged children. We are a flexible employer, but we also had to spend £20k on legal fees to successfully defend a claim for disability discrimination which was simple sour grapes. And we could recover zero of our costs despite this being very close to vexatious litigation.

It's become a bandwagon. Money for this money for that and dwindling numbers of folk support this army of malingerers who can't get a job for this that or the other reason but can manage perfectly well in other areas of their lives. It takes away from the genuinely sick. Labour obviously think there is a problem. I agree.

I wouldn't ever want someone with a severe disability forced into work, that would be inhumane. I do however think we need to get the lazy, feckless out to work. There are many many people that could do something, even if it's litter picking or something for their local area. Most people could do SOMETHING

More support should be put into schools and universities to help young people with mental health. Not expensive counseling for all but at least continual learning to develop understanding of psychology and the developing brain. People need to learn to distinguish between depression/anxiety disorders and feeling temporarily down or uncomfortable.

Because getting disability benefits is oh so easy

Well if there are such huge numbers on benefits (which I don’t think anyone is arguing about) it can’t be that hard.

A lot of people are genuinely unwell. The UK lifestyle is generally unhealthy.

More jobs are needed though - particularly disability confident ones.

Very little is said about what employers need, or how people with different disabilities will be accommodated.

My company is Disability Confident, and we have employees with a variety of disabilities working here.The home / office based roles people say they want come up rarely and normally need specific skills / qualifications.

The roles that we struggle to recruit into that the business needs most are good quality with reasonable conditions, hours and pay / benefits, but require a degree of physical fitness. And we need people to turn up fairly consistently, otherwise it puts the rest of the team members under strain. It would be lovely to be able to pay more people than we need to be able to include someone with a fluctuating health condition, but unfortunately without help, the business cannot afford to do this.

I think it's difficult for companies- they may well want to take on an excellent candidate but may worry that sickness calls will roll in once they are recruited. It's very hard to then do anything about it once they are on the payroll

Think the two child cap for benefits is absolutely right. Why should the taxpayer subsidise folk's choice to have larger families.

Some medical conditions can be one and done like the poster upthread whose DH needs a hip replacement. I’m aware recovery time can be different for each individual. Whilst everyone should get the best care possible to actually get people back in to work maybe they should concentrate their efforts on cases where there is something very specific that can definitely be rectified.

@NantesElephant it is pretty unhealthy isn’t it. My own brother died from complications from type 2 diabetes. It runs in our family and is literally a smoking gun as we are genetically predisposed. He made zero effort and was overweight and drank and ate what he wanted. He left his widow my lovely SIL alone and never got to meet his grandchildren. I’m checked every year and it’s the reason I’m practically teetotal since my late thirties.

Because it's driven so many people into poverty. One in three children in the UK is now in poverty.

Oh but it is. There are how many people of working age in this Country? and the people out of work, on benefits do not outnumber them. The number of people on sickness benefits would not be the level that it is were it not for 14 years of health services being run down, into the ground. It is crucial that the NHS is fixed.

My gripe is 'single' mothers claiming all the benefits they can, while the fathers are actually paying them child support. But that's maybe just me that gets irritated by this