UK Health Secretary Wes Streeting has stressed that work is just as vital to people’s health as diet and exercise. Photo / Getty Images
Therapists will tell anxious and depressed Britons that work is good for their mental health in a fresh attempt to end Britain’s sick note culture.
Medical professionals are being urged to effectively prescribe having a job as a form of treatment amid concern over the soaring sickness benefits bill.
Wes Streeting, Britain’s Health Secretary, said the change reflected a shift in attitude to treating employment as being “just as vital” to health as diet and exercise.
There are more than 2.8 million people of working age in the United Kingdom who are economically inactive because of long-term sickness, latest figures show.
The number has risen by 800,000 since just before the pandemic, fuelled largely by a sharp increase in sick notes being issued for mental health problems.
As a result, official projections show that the taxpayer bill for sickness and disability benefits is now set to top £100 billion ($231.5b) a year by the end of the decade.
Chancellor of the Exchequer Rachel Reeves and No 10 remain determined to clamp down on the cost of welfare, despite being defeated by Labour MPs over plans to slash handouts.
But they are having to look at alternative ways to bring down the number of claimants, to avoid the prospect of another humiliating backbench rebellion.
In a sign of simmering tensions within the party, one Labour MP insisted: “Cuts to welfare are quite simply not acceptable given the wholly unjust way inequality is structured in Britain, with so many people living in poverty”.
New guidance has now been issued to allied health professionals – a group which includes therapists and physiotherapists – on the benefits of work.
They have been told to include discussions about employment and its benefits in conversations with patients who could fall on to sickness benefits.
They will be expected to ask people what job they do, how it affects their health, and what would help them to stay in work rather than leave.
For patients who are unemployed, they can instead ask what job they would like to do, what is stopping them from working and how that can be overcome.
Medical professionals will also be armed with a series of statistics about how going on to sickness benefits can lead to significantly worse outcomes.
Official figures show that living in areas of high unemployment is linked to higher risk of cardiovascular disease, mental health issues, and early death.
In contrast, people in neighbourhoods with high levels of employment are far more likely to enjoy good health and live to an older age.
It is hoped that spelling out the benefits of work and the dangers of quitting it will dissuade people from signing on to benefits.
The guidance to medics states: “We need to ensure people have access to more holistic support, when and where it is needed, to reduce health disparities and avoid the negative health impacts associated with being unemployed.
“This not only benefits individuals, their families and communities, but also supports economic growth, which can be reinvested into public services.”
Streeting told the Telegraph: “Staying in a job you love or finding work that gives you purpose is just as vital to your health as eating well and staying active.
“Millions of people are trapped in a system that writes them off instead of supporting them – this Government is shifting the narrative from ‘you can’t’ to ‘how can we help you?’
“Through this new guidance, we are helping front-line staff get patients the personalised support they need as early as possible, because preventing illness and keeping people in work is central to building an NHS fit for the future, and strengthening our economy.
“Everyone we can help stay in work or return to work isn’t just transforming their own life – they’re contributing to our communities, and building the healthier, more prosperous nation we all want to see.”
Streeting’s intervention comes after repeated warnings that it has become too easy to be signed off work and go on to sickness benefits.
Recent research has shown that a person on welfare benefits for long-term ill health can take home more money than a worker in a minimum wage job.
The last Tory Government identified a key driver of the trend as the fact that GPs are responsible for signing off the vast majority of sick notes.
Family doctors are not typically specialists in conditions such as mental health, meaning they may be more likely to give patients time off work.
Tory ministers expanded the rules around sick notes – officially known as fit notes – so that they can now be issued by other professionals, such as therapists, instead.
Despite that, doctors still currently account for more than nine in 10 fit notes issued.
Figures released last week showed that 93% of the notes issued by doctors deem the patient not fit for work, and just 7% that say they may be fit to.
That contrasts with 87% to 13% for occupational therapists and 72% to 28% for physiotherapists.
The figures suggest that medical specialists are more likely to deem that a patient has some ability to carry on work than family doctors and nurses.
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