Job advisers may be posted in NHS hospitals to get long-term sick back to work

Employment advisers are to be stationed in NHS hospitals under plans from Labour to push people on long-term sickness leave back into work,as one disability charity warned 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 in use 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”.

Disability welfare spending is forecast to be £39.1bn in Britain in 2023-24, according to the Office for Budget Responsibility, which is about 3.1% of the UK 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 last month that people on long-term sickness leave must get back to work “where they can”.

Labour’s plans are likely to cause discontent among some disability charities who will hear echoes of language used by the Conservatives in government. In April Rishi Sunak attacked a supposed “sicknote culture” in Britain 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”.