Sick Brits are set to be helped “back to health and back to work” by “crack teams of top clinicians”, Wes Streeting has announced in a bid to tackle rising economic inactivity.
The health secretary today pledged reforms created by surgeons would be rolled out in hospitals across the UK “to treat more patients and cut waiting lists”.
Speaking at the annual Labour Party conference in Liverpool, Streeting also announced that “the first twenty hospitals targeted by these teams will be in areas with the highest numbers of people off work sick”.
Some 2.8m people are out of work due to ill-health, according to the Office for National Statistics (ONS), while the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) forecasts that the benefits bill will soar by £30bn in the next five years, on current trajectories.
Teams have been selected due to their speed, with some having developed “new ways of working” that allow them to carry out “four times more operations than normal,” Labour said.
Streeting told delegates: “Our reforms are focused not only on delivering our health mission but also moving the dial on our growth mission too.
“We will take the best of the NHS to the rest of the NHS, get sick Brits back to health and back to work. That’s the difference a Labour government makes.”
It came as Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer said those on long-term sickness and claiming benefits should be in work “where they can”.
He told the BBC’s Radio Four Today programme: “I think the basic proposition that you should look for work is right.
“Obviously there will be hard cases, but the way I would do it is to say: yes, that’s the basic proposition, but we also want to support [people] that so that more people can get into work.”
Starmer also said: “Quite often I think what lies behind this is a fear for someone who’s been on long-term sickness, that: can they get back into the workplace? Are they going to be able to cope? Is it all going to go hopelessly wrong?
“Yes they need to be back in the workplace where they can, but I do think that if we can put the right support in place, which I’ve seen pilots of, they work pretty well, and we want to see more of those across the country.”
However, senior health figures have told the BBC there was “increasing nervousness” around Streeting and Labour’s message that the “NHS is broken”.
Some warned the language “could spook patients” and make it harder to “raise staff morale”.