DWP Work Coaches to go into MH wards

[Rinoachicken]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c98y09n8201o

so when you are at you absolute lowest and most unwell (which they are if they are an inpatient as bed are so scare), possibly lacking capacity, lacking cognisance function to understand and retain information, suicidal, psychotic - some tick box Jo, who’s only knowledge of mental health was a half day online course a couple of weeks ago, is going to come along and chat about your CV?!

If you are wanting to support people who are mentally unwell back into work, those acutely unwell in a hospital setting wouldn’t be my first priority - I’d be trying to increase the support AFTER discharge once stable, to those in the community and at primary care level first surely??!!

The DWP should have NO PLACE on a mental health ward imho - where the ONLY considerations and objectives should be stabilising people’s mental health.

Hopefully it gets scrapped when they get attacked by a patient who they shouldn't be harassing In the first place. It really would be their own fault if they did get attacked

Work coaches gently helping people back to work sounds a lot better than the system of punishments and sanctions the Tories brought in which has just made a bad situation worse.

But seeing people in hospital sounds like far too early in the process. To get into hospital anywhere for a mental or physical condition you normally have to be acutely unwell and will certainly not and should not be thinking about work.

There is a trial being done apparently - as the spokesperson from Mind says, let's see the results.

So by the time they have been through your bank accounts, and yes they do and have been through mine recently they can now charge into your hospital ward during your most vulnerable stay,its like a starsi regime has been implemented! What ever next? We will wait , revel and wonder at the next thing they come up with! FFS bloody ridiculous

The DWP are heinous. If you have ever been on the receiving end of interactions with their health "professionals" you would know. Cruel, mendacious, and not even remotely qualified to take a holistic approach to helping people. None of this is going to end well!

The only potential good reason for this would be to ensure that the person in crisis was receiving all the benefits that they are entitled to, and to put additional support in to make sure they have a home to go back to (eg making sure rent/ mortgage payments are not missed)

I don't believe it's DWP work coaches, the article it says "job coaches"
There's a 'work well' pilot run by NHS CCGs at the moment (I know they're not ccg's anymore- forgotten new name!) so it's NHS staff who deliver the service not DWP.
If you re read it there's no mention of DWP delivery in the article.

A million percent agree x

It sounds quite abusive.

And what a massive waste of money. A good way to increase the "black hole in the finances".

The obvious result will be people made more ill and so less able to work. Worrying about benefits and disability assessments are known to push people over the edge - setting back any chance of getting well enough to work.

And obviously it also won't make employers hire people who aren't well enough to work. And that's the real issue re disability and illness. There are people (not on psychiatric wards) who're recovering or managing their illness - but employers won't hire them due to disability and employment gap discrimination.

If the government genuinely wants to help people get well and back in work, then they need to,

a) Have a supportive benefits system, so people don't get more ill worrying about financial survival and can instead focus on their health

b) Address the widespread disability and employment gap discrimination that jobseekers face. Perhaps they should send "work coaches" into businesses to speak to HR departments.

Also, c) More council housing. Bad or insecure housing harms health. Physical, as published in the VNJ. But also mental health.

The government can't win here can they?

"The Government isn't doing enough to help mental health patients!"
"Ok, here's a programme we will trial to see if we can help people get jobs after they leave hospital"
"How dare you! I hope you get attacked by a patient you're trying to help"

Asci said I worked on acute mental health wards for years
These coaches are not going ti be allowed to just wander on a ward willy ,nilly
These types of wards can be loud and chaotic with some very unwell patients
At best maybe the can see patients that have consented to see them who are calm and recovering, maybe as part of their treatment plan ,nobody is going ti be forced to see them.

@KrisAkabusi there's a time and a place. When someone's so unwell they're in hospital, that's not the time or place to send someone in to make them more distressed and frightened. Which is exactly what this would do. The immediate priority for someone in hospital is to focus on their health and recovery.

Also how will work coaches stressing unwell people make employers hire those unwell people? Even when someone's recovered from an illness (physical or mental illness) there's widespread discrimination by employers against disabled candidates and those with employment gaps. If anyone needs a "work coach" employers do.

This is shocking, and shows how out of touch they are. Mental Health is so underfunded, and beds so few and far between, you have to be very very unwell to be admitted at all in this area.

I know of people who have having very clear suicidal ideation and very distressing delusions, who had to go miles out of area to get a bed. And they were being sectioned.

Do they think that mental health wards are full of people who just need some positive thinking and a nice bit of fresh air?

From the article:

Kendall praised projects in Leicester and at the Maudsley Hospital in Camberwell, in south-east London, which offered employment support - such as training on CV writing and interviews - to people with serious mental health conditions, including on hospital wards.
"The results of getting people into work have been dramatic, and the evidence clearly shows that it is better for their mental health," she said.

Surely it's worth a bigger trial rather than dismissing it out of hand, particularly if initial results are positive?

Wow... will they also be sending DWP workers to cancer wards ?

I do agree that for some people helping them back into work may well be beneficial to their mental health. However, if it's got bad enough for someone to be actually admitted to hospital there are more important things to consider - like for example keeping the patients from badly damaging themselves or others.

Has the bureaucrat who made this astonishing decision ever been on a mental health ward.... or met someone who has... or asked the people who work there?? The mind boggles

People in mental health units are at their most vulnerable, it's not the time for thinking about getting back to work

I don't actually think it's a horrendous idea for those nearing discharge.

Could help them as part of a plan/goal that helps them with their recovery

Whoever thought of this clearly has never stepped foot on a mental health ward. As if you can engage someone mid psychotic episode in a discussion about work...

I think it would be detrimental to the recovery to have a work coach rock up before you had even been discharged. There is no actual need for this to happen. It's all targets and tick boxes and as usual we are collateral damage.

Nobody is going to be.doing that.

Anyone who sees any merit in this idea is lucky enough to have never been anywhere near a mental health inpatient unit.

And completely disagree with the poster who thinks this is a kinder, different approach to the Tories. No, this is straight out of the "Priti Patel big book of political ideas" Her speciality of being both cruel and stupid, now apparently inspiration for Liz Kendall.

Liz Kendall should just visit a mh ward before she makes pronouncements like this fgs. Awful, clueless woman.

I take enough issue with mental health professionals going 'computer says no' when it comes to accessing support...

Yes, but what will they be doing? As someone who has worked on inpatient wards, the way things are now is that only the most acutely unwell are inpatients, and as soon as they are anywhere near well enough they are discharged to the community. Having them potentially be part of community teams may be more realistic, but inpatient? It just shows complete lack of insight into the realities of inpatient mental health care as it currently stands.

I'd be interested to see the full information re the "results of getting people into work have been dramatic".

What's definitely dramatic in terms of numbers - and also dramatically shocking, is the number of suicides due to benefit cuts, sanctions, etc. Imo suicide isn't appropriate term in these cases. If someone's pushed over the edge, it's at very least manslaughter.

It also comes across (that quote from the article) as very patronising and ignorant. Do they think nobody with qualifications and experience, including knowledge of how to write a CV, suffers from mental ill health?

And even if someone's recovered enough to be able to work, what good will the CV writing tips be when the major barrier to work is employer disability and employment gap discrimination? Unless the tips are how to lie about reasons for employment gap so the company doesn't think it was due to illness? I assume not, as guessing they're not allowed to encourage people to lie on CVs.

Where's the initiatives aimed at combatting employer disability and employment gap discrimination? Work coaches going in to see HR departments?

But anyway when someone's unwell, if there was a genuine desire to help them back to work then there'd be a supportive benefits system. If people didn't have the additional distress of worrying about financial survival and dealing with benefit assessments, they'd be more able to focus on recovering - so then more chance of eventually being well enough to work again.

Ensuring that inpatients don't lose their accommodation while in hospital would be a good start- currently even this seems too challenging for the government.

Absolute jokers.

It's like the minute you engage, they'll probably sanction you as well.

Labour is not the party I was a member of until Kier came in. They're proto-Tories. Even Maggie Thatcher would've thought this was a step too far.

Shockingly out of order.