Mental health patients to get job coach visits, says minister

The government says employment coaches will visit seriously ill patients on mental health wards to try to get them back into work.

Work and Pensions Secretary Liz Kendall told the BBC that a trial of employment advisers providing resume and interview advice in hospitals had produced “dramatic results”.

She said the wider rollout would be part of her efforts to scale back Britain’s annual disability and incapacity benefit bill. But disability rights campaigners have raised concerns about the proposals.

The cost of these benefits is expected to soar by almost a third over the next four to five years, according to the Institute for Fiscal Studies.

The report predicts that the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) will spend £63 billion by 2028-29, a significant increase from £48 billion in 2023-24.

Speaking exclusively to BBC News, Kendall said: “I would like to see those costs come down because I want people to be able to work and continue to work and it’s good for them.”

She said some people would lose benefits and said “the benefit system can have a real impact on whether it incentivizes or dissuades work”.

Kendall praised programs at Maudsley Hospital in Leicester and Camberwell, south-east London, which provide employment support such as resume writing and interview training to people with severe mental illness, including those on hospital wards.

“This is for people with serious mental health issues,” she said. “The results of getting people into work are significant and the evidence clearly shows it’s better for their mental health.”

She added: “We really need to focus on getting these employment counselors into our mental health services. It’s better for people. It’s better for the economy. We just have to think differently.”

The DWP is preparing a new jobs white paper, which will be published during the budget and spending review later this month, which will outline its reform plans.

However, disability rights groups in the UK have raised some concerns about the proposed policy.

It criticized the DWP’s initial report on the proposals in July for making no mention of the Equality Act, flexible working or the Work Opportunities Scheme, and only mentioned reasonable adjustments.

Kendall said she believed British society had “deteriorated” and that Britain was “the only G7 country where employment rates have not returned to pre-pandemic levels.”

According to official figures for the June-August period released yesterday, 21.8% of people are considered “economically inactive”, meaning they are aged between 16 and 64 and are not working or looking for work.

The number is down slightly from the May-July period but remains near a decade high after rising during the pandemic.

Kendall added: “There is clear evidence that we are indeed battling a health problem.”

“I don’t think the extra £30bn spent on sickness and disability benefits is because people are feeling ‘a bit blue’,” said her predecessor Mel Stride.

She also urged employers to “think differently” about workers with mental health issues to provide flexibility to support and retain workers with health conditions.

Kendall also told the BBC Jobcentre would be transformed by merging with the National Careers Service and using artificial intelligence.

She suggested that face-to-face work would be reserved for “those who really need it” but for others “to provide more personalized support using artificial intelligence”, expanding on ideas put forward by her predecessor Stride.

She also suggested that empowering regional mayors would help more closely match unemployed people with local job openings.

This echoes Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham calls for control of job centers to be handed over to local authority.