Curing Britain’s Sickness Culture

Article written by Nisha Rikhi, BA in Politics and International Relations from University of Sussex, GDL graduate, and current LPC student.

Britain has a very high sickness rate and there are many people who are out of work due to poor health. Given the number of vacancies in the country, it is vital that we get as many people in work as possible in order to increase the nation’s productivity.

Require work-related activity while off sick

One idea is to start requiring people who are receiving the sickness element of Universal Credit to undertake work-related activities. Getting claimants who currently cannot work to partake in work-related activities such as writing CVs and taking training courses ensures they are ready for work and have transferable skills to take from workplace to workplace. One particular problem is that there are disabled people who are unable to find work and are subsequently on benefits, even though they could be working. The government could help disabled people by raising the standard rate of disability benefit awards as they are less likely to be in work, so are at greater risk of hardship. At the same time as protecting the disabled from financial hardship, the government could introduce work experience programmes to give disabled benefit claimants a chance to gain experience in the workplace. If the government cleared the waiting list backlog for treatment and required more claimants of benefits to undertake activities to prepare them for work, then we may find that less people are permanently off sick and more of those who were off sick start to return to work.

Invest in mental health and elective surgeries

Government also needs to invest money in the NHS system to make more appointments available for mental health treatment and elective surgeries. There are thousands of people who are off sick because they need surgery and are waiting for hip or knee replacements, cataract surgeries, and other elective surgeries. They are often waiting months, if not years, for their surgeries, thereby keeping them out of work even though they could ordinarily be working. The waiting lists for mental health treatment are just as long, and the wait for mental health treatment for children often means that families have to struggle to cobble together healthcare from alternative sources. The government therefore needs to increase the number of appointments for elective surgeries and reduce the waiting lists so people can start to receive treatment and go back to work.

Preventing illness

The government needs to invest in preventing illness. Government could start by ensuring that all children whose parents are in receipt of disability benefits and Universal Credit receive free school meals. This would ensure that the most disadvantaged children do not become ill due to poor nutrition or lack of access to decent meals. Furthermore, the government could legislate to increase the holiday entitlement for employees from four weeks to six weeks. This would ensure that all employees have the opportunity to take time off work and it would reduce burnout and sickness caused by work-related stress. Additionally, government should legislate to ban adverts of junk food and gambling on television and the internet to make it less attractive to the public. This is because there has been a rise in obesity and related illnesses, and sadly, there has been a chronic rise in mental illness and deaths due to gambling addiction, both of which are preventable. Finally, the government should take legal action to force housing associations to keep their properties in a state of good repair. This is because poor social housing has been linked to the rise in illnesses amongst tenants, and sadly it has also led to death. This means that forcing housing associations to make good repairs in their existing housing stock will reduce preventable illness and free up the NHS for other patients who need emergency care. If the government took all the measures set out here, we could see a fall in preventable illness caused by child poverty, work-related burnout, obesity, problem gambling, and social housing disrepair.

Primary care and care in the community

The government should rapidly increase provision of primary care and care in the community. Government could start by increasing the number of physiotherapists, occupational therapists, district nurses, and health visitors in the community. This would allow patients to remain out of hospital and away from doctors’ surgeries as they would be visited and receive treatment in their own homes. The government should also increase the number of pharmacies in the community and train up more pharmacists to be independent prescribers. This could free up appointments with doctors as pharmacists could treat patients with minor ailments and help patients manage their medications better, which will keep them out of hospitals and doctors’ surgeries. If the government took all the steps set out here, we could see a rise in the provision of primary care which could result in a fall in the number of people visiting hospital who could be cared for in the community.

It is clear that Britain has a serious problem with sickness culture. The causes of this are varied and complex, ranging from work-related stress and burnout to long waiting lists for treatment. What is clear is that there are about a million job vacancies that are not being filled and there are thousands of people who are out of work due to sickness, some of whom could return to work. The ideas outlined above are ways that the government could encourage people to return to work, although it remains to be seen if the country will be able to mitigate the sickness culture taking hold in this country.