GP’s will soon be stripped of the ability to sign people off work as part of a major government inititive to crack down on ‘sick note culture’.
In a major speech on welfare reform today, Rishi Sunak will warn that a surge in people signed off sick with mental health conditions is placing ‘unsustainable’ pressure on the welfare budget.
The Prime Minister will say the focus must shift to what work people ‘might’ be able to do, rather than what they can’t, and that people should avoid ‘over-medicalising the everyday challenges and worries of life.’
The speech comes a month after Work and Pensions Secretary Mel Stride faced criticism for an interview in which he said there was ‘a real risk’ that ‘the normal ups and downs of human life’ were being labelled as medical conditions which then held people back from working.
In his vision for a ‘new welfare settlement for Britain,’ Mr Sunak is expected to pledge not to dismiss or downplay illness, but to call for a ‘more ambitious’ approach to helping people back to work.
But his comments have been heavily criticised by medical professionals and disability charities, who have accused the PM of being ‘driven by bringing costs down rather than how we support disabled people’.
The Prime Minister will say: ‘We should see it as a sign of progress that people can talk openly about mental health conditions in a way that only a few years ago would’ve been unthinkable, and I will never dismiss or downplay the illnesses people have.
‘But just as it would be wrong to dismiss this growing trend, so it would be wrong merely to sit back and accept it because it’s too hard; or too controversial; or for fear of causing offence. Doing so, would let down many of the people our welfare system was designed to help.’
He will say there is a ‘growing body of evidence that good work can actually improve mental and physical health’.
Mr Sunak will add: ‘We need to be more ambitious about helping people back to work and more honest about the risk of over-medicalising the everyday challenges and worries of life.’
