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?

Fixing the NHS so people can be made well enough to work would be a damn good start. Throw money at emptying waiting lists and all the people off sick waiting for ops should be on the road to getting back to work...

Actual resources being used to help people get physically well, get orthopaedic ops done before long term damage kicks in.

Put money into mental health care to avoid crises with long lasting results.

Invest is early access to appropriate physio and treatment for back pain.

Do similar for any other "common" ailments and the long term tax take should balance the cost of paying for services

Well say you start on the shop floor, move into customer services, move into management.

Almost everyone works their way up a ladder.

Getting people who can, or will be able to work, breaks their cycle of being stuck indoors, perhaps online thinking life is passing them by, if you go out into the world you get to see there are many people like you, and opportunities occur, but nothing will happen if you stay in collecting benefits.

No you are not going to become a computer games designer because you play Fortnite. You have to be realistic of what you can actually achieve.

@Randomsabreur In England, most GO surgeries have physios you can self refer to for issues like back pain or injuries.

The concern is the % of the working age population that are a financial net gain.

Many people who work still pay less in tax and NI than they receive in benefits for a variety of reasons ( eg rent. )

If the government is serious about ...it would so something

While that is my personal way of assessing things, it is apparently so so so not how things are done these days.

If you actually look at what the/any government does, you'd be amazed how little actually maps to what it says it does.

Take net zero, as a example. Loads of utter utter bollocks about emissions from cars and fuck all about the carbon footprint of sending 27 appointment letters and requiring people to use paper rather than online forms.

How soon? And what if it doesn't work, plus ability to rule out nasty things with imaging? Or is it 2-3 appointments in 6 weeks time then join the waiting list to see a consultant..

@Randomsabreur Within a few days at my GP surgery. It would be from 1 -3 appointments. Most minor issues can be sorted out there. But if not you are referred onto the next stage where you could get an MRI, steroid injections, etc.
You were talking about access to physios to sort out things like back pain quickly when it is at the minor stage and I am saying this laready exists in England at least.

@SuperBored A LOT of people work in minimum wage jobs or jobs earning not much more than that. It is unrealistic to not work unless you can walk into a high paid job.

Yes, I know. I was responding to a poster who seemed to take the view that as there are more people working than there are not employed and on benefits, the country could cope.

Nail on the head. Very few people walk straight into a well paying lucrative job. Most people start at the bottom (or near the bottom) and work up through experience, promotions, learning new skills, studying for qualifications, etc., and, of course, moving between employers if prospects are limited at your earlier employer. I think too many people are unrealistic and expect too much too soon. Employers value a previous work ethic, so working a low/no skilled minimum wage job (or a student job) IS valuable for the person as it increases their chances of getting a better job later on (whether with a better employer or a higher paid job with better prospects etc), especially if the person has actually turned up on time, followed instructions, etc so more likely to have a good reference from past employer(s).

50k jobs are not glamorous anymore they are fairly average jobs, but as I say, these are being off shored because companies based in the UK can get them done (in a headline cost base comparison) cheaper elsewhere.
Minimum wage doesn't not support a single parent family it would still require a top up to not struggle financially.
I meant valuable as to the person earning it, ie you can live on it, have a family holiday each year, put an amount into pension and get a mortgage/rent without government top ups, does the job have a career path, or just any body will do?
Your friends sound like they are trying to employ people for money that can't enable living independently or for people that have no dependents if they are minimum wage roles, what prospects do the jobs offer?

I think an issue is that the majority of minimum wage jobs are physically demanding and an employer is not going to hire someone who has been long term sick with complex health needs and chronic conditions. They won’t be able to be a reliable employee, their productively will be far less than a healthy person. I can understand encouraging the 18-24yr olds that simply lack work experience and skills into these jobs, but the long term sick are not the employees businesses are willing to hire. I don’t agree with benefit sanctions though, not for anyone. They have the opposite effect they result in less chance of people moving into work and cause homelessness, misery, death, and the development of chronic health conditions that then puts people into long term sick.

Even a "minimum wage job with no prospects" will put you ahead of others when it comes to applying for better jobs because you have experience and work history to put on your cv which someone who won't do that kind of work won't have. Employers value work experience and work ethic.

The word "afford" means different things to different people.

One of the reasons we're sticking to one child is that we can only afford to hopefully meet our target savings of 100k for our son's future.

BUT when you get to the bottom end of the scale, it becomes far less consequential when you're looking at "we'll have nothing, but we already have nothing".

The biggest issue with your way of defining valuable is that it is really very unrealistic for the vast majority of people. If a “valuable” job is one that allows you to go on holiday etc then most of the clients I have worked with don’t have “valuable” jobs and some of them work in the police force, the NHS, they still can’t afford a family holiday once a year.

And the reality is not every job has amazing prospects, but they still need to be done. Not every person stocking shelves at Asda or manning the checkout is going to work their way up to management, but we’d all be pretty fucked if everyone decided they wouldn’t do that job for that reason.

This view of a job only being worthwhile if you can have these things or progress to management etc is exactly the problem the government are trying to tackle. People who CAN work but aren’t because they share your view of “well I can’t afford a week in Spain” or “I’m not going to end up promoted there”, so think it’s not worth working at all. They are only able to have that view because of the money they currently receive from the government, they’d be a lot less picky if actually that useless job with no progression is what they needed to pay their rent and buy food. And as another poster has said, you never get the “great” jobs if you just sit at home doing nothing and therefore gaining no experience, references, contacts etc

@Mrsttcno1 Why should it be unreasonable for a job to pay enough to not need top ups? Why is it unreasonable that a job should offer enough to fund a holiday a year?
Households Below Average Income state that to be in relative poverty as a household of one adult and 2 children anything below £23k after tax qualifies (so about 30k before tax) this does not take into account any pension contributions, so no saving towards being independent of the state in retirement.
Do you think that people should take a job and accept being in relative poverty even though they are working?

Very few people walk straight into a well paying lucrative job.

The problem is the vast majority of MPs is drawn from a group of people who did, Which invariably colours their opinions.

"Is this a book you would like your wife or servants to read ?" is still a powerful and valid comment on the gulf between the people who make the rules, and the people who are expected to follow them.

E2A: There also appears to be a lot of confusion between jobs and vocations. In both directions.

Well given all the talk about jobs being lost due to the budget I'm wondering how the long-term sick and disabled are expected to get a job when there will be more healthy and able-bodied people competing for them. The reality is no employer is going to employ a person who has been on benefits long-term when they could take on a healthy 30 year old who has been made redundant.

Try finding a job as a healthy 60 year old. Its not easy to get work when you get older.

The alternative is going to be worse than relative poverty if people who can work, but choose not to, then are sanctioned and don’t receive any money at all.

Taking a job and needing some top up (which they’d still be entitled to) is far preferable to sitting waiting and dreaming of the high paying job for a holiday every year while receiving £0 to eat, clothe, heat and feed with.

In an ideal world an average job would be enough to have the things you mention, but cost of living is high and the reality is there’s no easy fix for that. Put minimum wage up? Great, but then because all the businesses are having to pay their staff more they put the prices up, so your bread that was £1 is now £2, the cinema trip that used to be £20 is now £30, the McDonalds that was £15 is now £20… your money doesn’t go any further.

There is no easy resolution, but the bottom line is for right now that if you CAN work, you should work, and you won’t be subsidised by gov funds anymore if you just don’t want to do the jobs available because you want better or more money. It’s a ladder, you have to get on somewhere.

Anecdotally in our family and friends circle it would seem things are moving faster with appointments and treatments coming through.

There is still the 10% "couldn't be arsed to attend"* figure at my GPs and local hospital. If I were Health Secretary I'd withhold any more funding until that is bought down to (and held at) less than 3%.

*We all have phones.

@SerendipityJane There are lots of reasons for that figure. First appointment letters simply not coming. Transport not arriving - the people who attend the most hospital appointments are those who need help to get there. People being too ill to attend - and if you ring and say this, the message rarely gets through. And people getting confused and not attending - lots of people who are ill have some cognitive issue, and if you have major issues there can be a LOT of appointments. Those who can't be arsed will be a very small number.

@SerendipityJane Incidentally, we do not all have phones. My father who lived independently until last year and cooked, could no longer manage his mobile phone. He used one of those landline phones with the massive buttons. A mobile phone would have to be the size of a tablet to reproduce that.

@SerendipityJane A couple of years ago DH was booked in for elective heart surgery a fortnight before Christmas. He had had a face-to-face consultation, an initial booking letter, a telephone pre-surgical consultation (one week before), text message reminders a week and three days prior to the clinic, and a nurse called the day before to check that he hadn't got a cold or cough at the last minute.

DH was one of six patients scheduled for the same procedure that day.

In addition to the surgeon, the team included pre-op, theatre and post-op nurses, an anaesthetists, a crash team and a whole team of IT staff running the imaging and the robotics.

Only DH and one other patient actually turned up on the day. 66% DNA...

Can you imagine this repeated across the NHS daily? No wonder it costs so much and achieves such poor results. The public have themselves alone to blame.