The DWP’s latest plan with GP surgeries isn’t new

The Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) has announced that they will further support disabled people into work, by *checks notes* installing work coaches into GP surgeries.

Yes, as well as forcing young people to take low-paying jobs and pushing those who can’t work to retrain as HGV drivers, the latest helpful scheme is to put DWP work coaches into healthcare settings. Y’know, where sick and disabled people go when they need medical attention, not to be forced into a job.

Connect to Work? Really?

The announcement from the DWP is that the Connect to Work scheme will see:

Job advisers to be embedded in GP surgeries as tens of thousands more sick and disabled people offered help into work

The press release claimed that over 40,000 more people who are out of work due to sickness and disability will be given “intensive employment support” which will help them to get back into “secure, fulfilling work and out of poverty”.

They’re doing this by expanding the Connect to Work scheme, which saw the pilot of specialist work advisors put into settings such as GP surgeries and Mental Health units to “help” disabled and sick people back into work. Of course, I use “help” here because that’s their word, not mine.

Connect to Work is, as the DWP describes it:

the programme that refuses to write off sick or disabled people.

However, what it actually involves is finding more and more pervasive ways to force work down the throats of vulnerable people who have already been deemed too sick or disabled to work by the DWP – that’s how they receive the benefits in the first place!

It’s not just bestowed upon them when they get ill, as the media and politicians make out. Sick and disabled people have already jumped through all of the DWP’s hoops to prove they can’t work. And now they want to force them into work anyway.

Health minister Stephen Kinnock, in a quote he probably laughed at himself, said:

This investment is just what the doctor ordered and will help thousands more find the help they need to get back into a job

Ughhhh.

Labour pretending to care about the North East again

This expansion will see the scheme rolled out in a further six areas, with the aim that by April 2026 all local authorities in England will have these “specialist advisors” in healthcare settings such as GP surgeries and mental health services. Though, as I explained in the Canary a couple of weeks ago, these “specialists” are actually just redeployed work coaches from Jobcentres.

The government has promised funding of over £1bn across England and Wales over the next five years for Connect to Work, which is weird when they’re constantly talking about how expensive the welfare bill is to justify benefit cuts.

The North East, for a change, is receiving the most money in this round of funding, as it will receive:

up to £49.7 million to support 13,800 people who’ve been written off for too long

As a disabled person from the North East, I’ve written extensively about just how much harder it is for disabled people to survive in successive governments that don’t give a fuck about us unless they’re using us as a political football. It also doesn’t help that the North East is all lumped together as one area, when it’s an expansive and diverse region. The needs of those in parts of Northumberland can’t be lumped in with those in Sunderland or Middlesbrough.

The North East, along with Portsmouth and East Sussex, will also receive extra support, including access to affordable childcare (which is good) and virtual reality classrooms to support people with interview practice, which seems in absolutely no way like a complete waste of money.

Something seems familiar with this new DWP plan

Weirdly enough, though, the DWP technically already made this announcement. On 4 September, it was announced that:

Thousands of sick and disabled people to get life-changing support into work.

This plan is, admittedly, more woolly and doesn’t nail down exactly what this support will be, but the figures are the same. The only difference is that the quote is from Liz Kendall, as this announcement came the day before Labour’s mega reshuffle. To me, this feels like a desperate attempt from Labour to distance itself from Kendall’s disastrous reign at the DWP and make McFadden seem like he’s doing far more than he actually is.

McFadden downplays how much this will damage community care

Pat McFadden, chief of the DWP, faced questioning on Good Morning Britain after a GP raised their concerns. Ed Balls told McFadden:

We spoke to a GP today who said ‘this is going to be the benefit police coming into your GP surgery and will put people off coming in. But you’re saying in the surgery the advice is voluntary, it’s not going to be forcing people to do things?

To which McFadden replied:

I think benefits police is a misconception here, that’s not what’s offered here, this is really intense valuable support to get into work

But it’s a very valid concern. Disabled people are already sick of being hassled by the DWP to find work despite not being able to work, putting work coaches in GP surgeries won’t make them feel safer, in fact, the opposite will happen.

How are GPs supposed to provide care to their community when many are too scared to seek medical attention for fear they’ll be forced into work? How will having someone who embodies hatred towards disabled people not erode community trust in health services such as GPs?

Latest in a long line of DWP plans to force disabled people into work

All this comes as the DWP job coaches are already hassling those who have been deemed as unfit to work by the government to take on “skills” courses and even be encouraged to find new careers, including driving HGVs. There’s also that Reeves wants to force anyone under 22 who is unemployed into low-paying placements, and of course the DWP want to stop anyone under 22 from claiming Universal Credit health element as well.

There’s also the very obvious fact that alongside all of these announcements and ways to “help” disabled people into work, there’s no actual practical help.

The DWP have made no commitment in terms of Access to Work; in fact, they’re quietly cutting that. And despite them giving all of this extra money to local authorities to fund these services, Access to Work or even money to make businesses work accessible or to support disabled people to interviews, doesn’t even factor into the budget.

Putting work coaches into the NHS won’t make more sick and disabled people seek help to get back into work. But it will make disabled people who are already scared that they won’t survive this Labour government even less likely to seek medical attention at a time when they’re already fighting for their lives.

Featured image via the Canary