DWP's plan to send work coaches into hospital in crackdown slammed

The DWP and new Labour Party government have been slammed by campaigners over the proposed plans.

The Department for Work and Pensions plans to send work coaches into hospitals and mental health facilities have been slammed. The DWP and new Labour Party government have been slammed by campaigners over the proposed plans.

Work and pensions secretary Liz Kendall has suggested that sending employment advisers to visit mental health patients could help inpatients get back to work. “We really need to focus on putting those employment advisers into our mental health services. It is better for people. It is better for the economy,” she told the BBC.

“We just have to think in a different way.” Speaking to the Big Issue magazine, May Gabriel, a senior organiser at the patient advocacy organisation Just Treatment, said: “The narrative behind it is: your only purpose is productivity. That’s a dangerous rhetoric anyway, but to bring it into psych units is really scary.”

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Mikey Erhardt from Disability Rights UK said: “The messaging behind both [policies] is ‘if you’re out of work because of health-related issues’, it’s a personal failing. It’s all on you as an individual'. There’s no accountability for the state, for employers, for policymakers. We’ve built a world that is incredibly hostile to disabled people and people with long term health conditions.

"Yet we’re not saying: ‘why are people in these circumstances unable to work? Instead, the dominant narrative is that if you can’t work, there’s something wrong with you that you need to change on a personal level.”

James Taylor, executive director of strategy at disability equality charity Scope, said: “It needs to be easier for disabled people to get into work. There is a lot of anxiety about being forced into unsuitable jobs or risking losing their benefits.

“We need to see evidence that work coaches being sent to visit seriously ill people works, and doesn’t cause distress.”