People on sickness benefits will be required to attend regular meetings with health-care professionals to address barriers to work, as a condition of receiving their benefit, under a two-year pilot announced yesterday (8 July).
Around 3000 people on Employment and Support Allowance (ESA), who have been assessed as being able to work in the future, will have regular appointments with doctors, occupational-health nurses and therapists, or risk losing their benefits. The scheme, which will begin in November and will run until August 2016, will involve people on ESA in the work-related activity group, who are expected to be able to return to work in 18 months, or more.
The pilot will compare the help given by health-care professionals with that provided under two other schemes to see which is best at helping people off sickness benefits and into work. The two alternative schemes — one that offers enhanced support through Jobcentre Plus and one via Work Programme third-party providers — are already up and running.
People in the work-related activity group for ESA already have ‘work-focused interviews’ with Jobcentre Plus as a condition of receiving their benefit. Under the pilot scheme, these interviews would be replaced with meetings with health-care professionals.
The length and frequency of the meetings would be flexible, depending on the individual’s needs, and will focus on how claimants can improve their view of their readiness for work by taking steps to manage their health issues. The health-care professionals will not replace a person’s GP, but can promote health support and help a claimant to reengage with their GP if they are struggling to adapt to their condition.
Commenting on the pilot, Employment minister Mark Hoban said: “We need to ensure that people who are able to work get the encouragement they need to get a job, while those who are too sick to work get real support.
“Many people on sickness benefits want to work, so it’s vitally important that we give them the right help to move into a job if they are able. The help we give people at the moment tends to focus on work-related skills, but doesn’t necessarily address health problems. But, by giving people regular support from doctors, occupational-health nurses and therapists, we can do more to help people manage, or improve their conditions.”
But mental-health charity Mind said the DWP’s policy on mental health and welfare reform is misplaced. Paul Farmer, chief executive at Mind, said: “Many people with mental health problems will already be in contact with healthcare professionals with whom they have established relationships — being assigned to someone new could be very disruptive and confusing.
“The overall aim of support someone receives should be their recovery from a mental-health problem — work can help with this, but it is not the main objective. There are already serious issues around compulsion with mental-health treatment.
“The DWP continues to fundamentally misunderstand the barriers faced by people with mental-health problems in returning to work — resorting time and time again to threatening people with sanctions, instead of supporting them into sustainable employment. Rather than helping them back to work, compelled health support will cause further distress for many people with mental-health problems.”
The health-care professional-led pilot uses funding from the European Social Fund.
In this episode of the Safety & Health Podcast, ‘Burnout, stress and being human’, Heather Beach is joined by Stacy Thomson to discuss burnout, perfectionism and how to deal with burnout as an individual, as management and as an organisation.
We provide an insight on how to tackle burnout and why mental health is such a taboo subject, particularly in the workplace.
