Employment advisers are to be stationed in NHS hospitals under Labour plans to push people on long-term sickness leave back into work, as one disability charity said the proposal must not become a “punitive” measure.
Wes Streeting, the health secretary, and Liz Kendall, the work and pensions secretary, are understood to want to expand a model used at the Maudsley psychiatric hospital, in south London, which deploys employment support, such as job seeking, CV writing and interview training.
James Taylor, the director of strategy at the disability charity Scope, told the Guardian Labour’s plans were “nowhere near as harsh as [the] previous government in terms of rhetoric” but that the focus on cutting the welfare budget “doesn’t recognise public services are failing and not supporting people early enough”.
The Office for Budget Responsibility has forecast disability welfare spending to be £39.1bn in Britain in 2023-24, about 3.1% of the government’s 2024-25 spending of £1,226bn.
Taylor said: “We need a compassionate welfare system that recognises where people are with their health in relation to work. Currently employment support is largely punitive and there is a culture of mistrust and fear. Any reforms must address these issues first, not simply replicate them in different settings.”
The number of people out of work due to ill health is growing by 300,000 a year, according to analysis by the Health Foundation thinktank.
Labour’s plan comes as it seeks to cut public spending and boost growth, and follows an NHS pilot scheme through which 40,000 people with mental health problems accessed employment support.
Norman Lamb, the chair of South London and Maudsley NHS foundation trust, told the Times, which first reported the plans, that “every clinical team across the country [should be] thinking employment is a legitimate and important goal of recovery for people”.
Lamb said the scheme was “not about forcing people into employment or doing anything that’s not right for them”, but about “recognising the importance to people of the dignity and self-worth that employment brings”, and in the process reducing “the burden on the NHS”.
The prime minister, Keir Starmer, said recently that people on long-term sickness leave must get back to work “where they can”.
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Labour’s plans are likely to cause discontent among some disability charities which will hear echoes of language used by the Conservatives in government. In April, Rishi Sunak attacked a supposed “sicknote culture” and said there was a risk of “over-medicalising” mental health conditions.
Taylor said the government must recognise “that for some disabled people work will never be an option”.