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

[Lazykitten]

Thinking of the people I know who are long term economically inactive long term (I believe that counted as over 6 months) and nearly all I know who fall into that bracket are my parents and there friends. Dad was a factory sparky and mum was a cleaner. Dad stopped work at i think around 61, mum does part time caring now in her early 60s but really struggles and I can see her having to give it up soon.

Most of their friends had similar manual jobs and now in their mid 60s a lot are signed off sick waiting for pension. These are people who have had manual jobs since they were 15/16 and their bodies are knackered. They can't (and very little point) in retraining now for their last couple of years before they get the state pension.

I work in an office job so can feasibly see how I could work to my late 60s and beyond, but those who've done manual work for over 40 years have the wear and tear on their bodies that they simply can't. As well as other health problems & decreasing energy levels that come with ageing.

There's got to be a sizeable number of folk age 60-67 that fall in that bracket? And taking it further is it another stick to beat the working class with?

I think it’s got a lot to do with the pressure out on everyone these days, working a full 40 week and having nothing to show for it each payday is demoralising and depressing. Most of the big companies that I know people work for pressure their staff with disciplinary action if they so much visit the doctors. It’s a tough game out there at the moment more so for young people who are stuck in high cost rentals and no chance of getting out of it!!

For that age group. A percentage of sick notes will be for that group, if your hypothesising is correct and backed up with statistical evidence. They are a part of the problem, a part of the bigger picture.

I work in a JC and Uni with the ONS; there are very many reasons why long-term sick is on the rise.

@mumatlast14 that's absolute bollocks. In France for example only very vulnerable people and over 80s are being offered covid vaccine boosters this Spring.

Personally I believe most of the problem actually stems from extremely long waiting lists for hospitals, it took me nearly a year to get my knee operated on, and I've an ongoing sinus issue that I've just had my preliminary meet with a specialist 13 months on! If people are sick and waiting on investigations and operations for ates they will be on long term sick. And now they are gonna turn sick notes into another PIP exercise where you have to fight and fight to get an illness recognised by a private company. All this rather than fix the most obvious issue within the NHS (probably cos they want to force everyone to go private like the dental system is going!)

Why is noone taking about post viral illness? The government are gaslighting those suffering with it. It's what they are getting at when stating that they need to see medical evidence i.e. scans, blood tests that prove diagnosis and symptoms. There are none verified for post viral illness as of yet.

I got long COVID in 2020 (more recently diagnosed with fibromyalgia and ME/CFS). It took nearly 3 years to get a long COVID diagnosis, with the first few doctors telling me my symptoms were due to anxiety or depression. I know my body and mind, and knew this was incorrect. I've had these issues far before COVID and was able to work.

I pushed and pushed myself working through long COVID, to the point that my symptoms got much worse. I'm now unemployed, even after fighting again and again to keep my job. If I lose PIP, I'm in trouble. I'm early 40s. And I am very aware that I am not alone in this.

Many 60 plus yo I know, and I'm one of them, has at least one or more chronic illnesses by 60 and some have less mobility too.
Many people think that mobility issues are restricted to manual workers but spending 40 plus years in desk jobs isn't great for mobility either, especially full time desk jobs.

Presumably Rishi's plan is to continue under investing in health care, then make people too poor to afford to not go in. I look forward to lots of seriously ill, extremely paranoid people, chatting to themselves whilst serving coffee / teaching children / tiling rooves. What could possibly go wrong?

They need to let older people retire and have some retirement to actually enjoy and free up jobs for the younger ones. But common sense and logic are alien to this country.

Would you like me to show you the posts from 2019 scoffing at Corbyn when he proposed free broadband. Bet people wernt laughing a few months later when Covid hit. Computers and internet cost money. My parents didnt buy a VCR until Christmas 1986

I’m 62 and reduced down to two days last year (left a management level supermarket job after being messed around for years but retained the book keeping job I enjoy). I can support myself and don’t want to work any more hours. And it is wonderful - although now also caring fur a 95 year old dad. But thoroughly enjoying rekindling my hobbies.
But. I am lucky not to have any health problems. I heard a good discussion on the radio a couple of days ago about how the current drugs shortage is leading to unemployment; the argument being that as people can’t get their usual meds (and different meds are impossible for some) peoples’ health is deteriorating so therefore more on sick pay and, the longer they are without meds the less likely they are to get back to work.
it was interesting and not something I had appreciated.

Yes, spot on. We need to think about that difference between manual work & lighter work & whether a transition is possible.

The rot set in decades ago. It's not recent. Latter day issues have made it worse and accelerated it, no doubt, but it certainly didn't start in the last decade! It's a very long term gradual decline since the "high" points of the 50s and 60s really. We have to accept that most of the Western World is in managed decline.

Yes, they do. You can be in receipt of both Universal Credit and Personal Independence Payment long term. Universal Credit is a working age benefit stops when you claim your state pension. Personal Independence Payment continues when you retire providing you still meet the criteria and haven't suddenly got better.

@sandieollsen your experience was highly unusual and you are obviously well off. Mobile phones in 1994 cost about £800 new. In real terms that is the equivalent to £1600 today. That is why they were still seen as for the well off.
This is a guide in 1983 to buying a home computer when you said your workplace had them. My family were early adopters of home computers and unless you spent a small fortune for a mainframe computer, then computers were not that much use in the office. You could use them for very basic word processing, but manual typewriters performed better. There were very few websites, and the web was basically a place catering to geeks. I suspect you have got your dates wrong.

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2009/dec/16/how-buy-computer-1983-archive

Im going to get a fucking loudhaler

PIP IS NOT AN OUT OF WORK BENEFIT

OP I imagine so, as you said, people who've done heavy physical jobs would be physically worn out possibly by 55 or 60. So by age 66 or 68 they are too old and chronically disabled/unwell to do more of their former jobs. And I mean men and women - nurses, shop workers, manual trades and workers.

oh lord.. you said it!

I work, I have disabilities, i get PiP!

get ready for the fallout to come your way .... how very dare we

No, not well off at all. The computers we had at work in 1983 were Commodore Pets. They did a lot more than word processing. We used them for book-keeping software, VAT returns, payroll and spreadsheets. It was several years later when we started using word processors!

At home, I bought a ZX80 in 1980 - can't remember how much it was, but it wouldn't be ridiculously expensive as I paid for it by saving my wages from a paper round for several months. I earned a fiver per week, so maybe cost £100 which would have been 20 weeks which sounds about right.

As for the mobile phone in the early/mid 90s, I remember it costing £25 per month, so pretty similar to an average contract today. I needed it because I was doing 50k miles per year all over the country so it was a small price to pay for the security of easily being able to ring for breakdown/recovery or if I needed to phone the emergency services.

Someone close to me has been waiting five years for a knee replacement. Always did manual work. Lifting and delivering tyres and then lifting and delivering televisions. (before flatscreens)

a, the NHS has rung him on three occasions and asked him if he still wants to remain on the waiting list.
b. at his last appointment to discuss this he was told his knee problem was due to his stroke that he had. But the knee problem came way before the stroke. hes now 67 Pure gaslighting

I was diagnosed with arthritis in my spine at 42, now have it in my hips and hands too, and have had a knee replaced.

I reduced my hours to 24 when I was 60, and I'm still working at 68 but can only do that because my job isn't physical. If it was, I probably would have had to stop at 50 or so.

@JenniferBooth, you're proving my point. With the increase in knee and hip replacement needed as a result of obesity mean that those who had no means to prevent deterioration have to wait much too long.

Some do, some don't then. Is PIP sufficient to cover bills though?

For me, not a chance.

Maybe now, but fir the last 4 years it's been offered to ALL. They have had high street access to antivirals and Evushield which our gov will not provide. They also put mitigations into law in 1st Jan 2023.

Wrong
https://www.service-public.fr/particuliers/vosdroits/F35611#0

Whats the excuse for the doc gaslighting him when the knee problem came before the stroke?