Too many off sick

[Scintella]

My ideas- (as gov seems utterly stumped)

There should be an opportunity to work 2 days a week for 2 months, then 3 days for 6 months until the worker feels able to cope with full time.
All the people diagnosed with ADHD and autism pre 2000 are possibly not properly medicated - are they being followed up regularly are they on the best treatment (some of which are new since their diagnosis)
All the people with undiagnosed ADHD and autism pre 2000 who with good support and medication could work
All the negative media we see on a daily basis giving the impression of a rich class who are swanning around and living off suspect unearned money etc etc There are many but it's not everyone and people such as doctors pay 40% tax or thereabouts. I think this puts people off slogging for a min wage job whcih require still benefits too to live makes them feel WTF should I?
Low income often means UPF food as it's cheapest. Subsidise fruit and veg.
Charities start more meet up groups/ walking groups/ fitness groups with cheap free access.

More support groups for mental health problems. People are too isolated at home with phone and tv. The time is filled but makes it harder to go out and socialise. Also discourages exercise.
No lodgings as there were in the past. So single men, women living alone in tiny flats eating takeaways. In the past they'd be in lodgings with social contact and an evening meal. For one person a takeaway is prob cheaper. Some people do need support but we pretend they don't now.
If there were a few of the get together groups in an area so easily accessed I think that would make a big difference.
Of course the NHS needs fixed etc and councils need more money but that isn't going to happen soon

Why have you jumped straight to time off?
Sort the NHS so people can get access to medical support promptly, and have sufficient supplies of medication (ADHD and menopause drugs being the 2 I can think of which have been hard to access recently).

Is your headline based on anything specific that has been said?

There isn't any medication for autism OP, but if employers were more knowledgeable about autism and ADHD, it would help tremendously

It was on politics live on BBC2 = the budget for the sickness benefits is higher than the total education budget, higher than police budget, higher than roads budget , this is in England. And it's due to continue to rise.
The interviewees had no suggestion other than criticising tories for NHS state.

Or a universal income, allowing people to work as much or little as they can, no sanctions. Basic living amount. Cut out massively on the bureaucracy of administration of benefits.
Mass social housing build. Lack of secure housing is massively contributing to poor MH.
Properly funded MH services
<watches the squadron of flying 🐖 going over funded by fairy dust>

Surely your first proposal is just a phased return to work after a period of ill health, which already exists

part of that disappeared!

all funded by fairy dust
< watching squadron of flying 🐖 going over>

My idea

Make
People
Better

Tories seem to consistently ignore health and mental health in this country. Cutting the benefits of the sickest is just completely typical if them being tone deaf to any actual research in the area.

My DC and I were saying there should be mandatory therapy for all every couple if years. We were listening to a programme about the rise in misogynistic adulation leading to the attacks in Australia and globally and they asked why men never get therapy. I'd suggest we start there with 50% of the population.

I agree with many of your points except

Vegetables are incredibly cheap on the whole. You can buy bags of carrots/ leeks/ broccoli/ cabbage / parnsips / frozen peas etc for pennies per potion. It's just not a convenient truth

I'd also be looking at workplaces, there's a lot of management bullshit and poor working conditions. If you had a friend recovering from mental illness and looking for work be honest would you be recommending your workplace? I wouldn't.

There is no medication for autism.

Medications for adhd are in short supply currently and many people with adhd are going without/calling round lots of pharmacies to get it.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cxe8n163p05o

I have wasted hours of my time sourcing the medications my daughter needs.

She also has multiple physical illnesses. She recently reached the top of the waiting list (2 and a half years) and has been seen by a consultant who thinks she might have juvenile arthritis. She is now on another waiting list to see a specialist and be diagnosed.

If you want sick people in work fix the NHS waiting lists so that they are no longer sick (or at least less sick) and then you'll have more people in work.

The nhs is not fit for purpose. Hasn’t been for years. The infra structure needs completely gutting. Nothing to do with how hard staff are working or not. We need to get over that.

This, the 'managing out' of people struggling or showing 'performance issues' due to their health without looking at a longer-term picture.

Theres no medication for autism but there are medications that can support the MH of someone with autism with co morbid conditions, such as anxiety and depression. There could also be much more of a push into therapies and emotional support to help build up people's coping skills, across everyone but particularly across people that are ND.

But in general, fix the NHS, cut the waiting lists (not by killing people off) offer scans, treatments, operations etc and get people back to work

However, each of these threads needs to have that image that someone posted yesterday where it compared the amount of billions lost in tax avoidance compared to the amount of suspected benefit fraud. One is much bigger than the other, I will leave you to guess which one!

There was a thread recently about what sounded like an autistic man at work , poster was being driven mad by his repetitive behaviours - pasts agreed he should be moved away from OP_ then someone said we’re all for inclusion until affects us -which really made me think

2018 Matt Hancock ' parity for mental health so it is treated the same as physical health' . Oh yeah

The education budget is far too low which is leading to masses of pupils with send not having the appropriate provision to enable them to develop the skills to work. It’s utter false economy. This children who are “hard to reach” are dropping out of education and will end up costing a fortune in benefits or prison costs.

you reap what you sow and the government is now reaping the rewards of 15 years of underfunded education and mental health services. Doesn’t take an eton education to foresee this situation!

Millions of people use tax avoidance -bound to be a large amount -I will sell a house soon, I have capital gains loss from a previous house I sold (less than it’s buying price) - so I will set the loss against the gains to reduce cgt- that’s tax avoidance. It’s not tax evasion.

It's such en emotive issue.

So many people are assuming that disabled are work shy and depend on benefits yet , let's be honest, there is a large number of feckless people who will do anything to avoid earning a single penny.

It's the feckless that we should be targeting, not those who are struggling.

perhaps look into how the feckless are getting by -are all their earnings legit.
Not many want to live on benefits.

Well to be fair I think we should first target the super rich - they have asked that world wide taxation mechanisms are put in place to enable them (the super rich) to be taxed more . They say the mechanisms need to be worldwide to ensure money doesn't just get moved around . Similar already exists at sone level for business apparently

More money in the system will make it easier to help those who don't work because of ill health ( mental or physical )

When you have sorted that out, then look to the feckless workshy

But just think a what employer wants a work shy employee ?

Why pre 2000? What happened then?

And sorry, if people are going to be off sick so much that means the rest of us have to work harder to cover for them. They come back 2 days a week? On full pay?

Pre 2000 I don’t remember many getting an adhd/ autism diagnosis. So I assume many are undiagnosed.

We’d all benefit if we got everyone back to work as it’s costing millions/billions
There are no ideas on the ta le - except stop benefits after a year or similar

Idea on table

Raise more taxes and invest in health services to get people better

Note that once you get people better you will be able to scale back the taxes

I'd target inheritance tax because that's unearned wealth and is driving inequality anyway

The discovered in the 1800s that starving people actually made society worse , it didn't lead people to employment of a legal kind , so scrapping benefits is known to not work so you might as well take that back off your table for