GPs to identify patients for Government's back-to-work scheme

The first of nine trailblazer programmes to get people back into work has begun in South Yorkshire, with GPs helping to identify those who may benefit.

Backed by £18m funding, the South Yorkshire scheme aims to work with 7,800 people in a year with the goal of getting 3,000 of them into jobs.

Designed locally after a project in Barnsley, the Work and Health Accelerator programme will involve GPs and other primary care staff identifying people who might be helped by the approach.

It is the first trailblazer scheme to launch, with £125m earmarked for areas with the highest levels of economic inactivity including in the North East and West Yorkshire.

The South Yorkshire plans include a dedicated service working with employers to hire those with health conditions, and a new ‘triage’ system to connect people to employment, health, and skills support more easily.

Officials want to reduce inactivity in the region from 25.5% in 2023 to under 20% by the end of 2029.

Part of the plans include preventing people falling out of work completely due to ill health and working with people with conditions including cardiovascular disease and diabetes.

It could include voluntary work as a step into paid employment or helping people receive the right treatment early so they can remain in a job, the Government said.

The proposals for helping people back into work were first announced in a White Paper published in November.

Another programme in Cumbria will use health coaches in GP practices to ‘offer advice, coaching and support’ to people when health issues become a barrier to working, the White Paper set out.

The document also pledged to address ‘key public health issues that contribute to worklessness through ‘a range of steps to tackle obesity’, including trials of new treatments.

The collaboration between the Government and Eli Lilly, the pharmaceutical giant behind weight-loss medication tirzepatide, will see plans for an evidence study being conducted in Manchester.

Work and pensions secretary Liz Kendall said: ‘For too long, whole areas of the UK have been written off and deprived of investment.

‘We are turning the tide on this – as we believe in the potential of every single person across our country and that they deserve to benefit from the security and dignity that good work affords.’

South Yorkshire mayor Oliver Coppard said the region’s industrial past had left a legacy of poor health and low skills that was holding people back from accessing good work and making the most of their potential.

‘That’s why we developed the pioneering Pathways to Work approach here in Barnsley, and why we’re now working with the Government to roll that programme out across the whole of South Yorkshire.

‘From today people will receive tailored support, bringing together the health system, the skills and employment system, to truly help people back into decent work.’

Minister for public health and prevention Ashley Dalton said: ‘Poor health is holding back too many people across the country, keeping them languishing on waiting lists when they could be getting back to their jobs and lives. Innovative services like these are critical to tackling economic inactivity.

‘Though the Plan for Change we will make people healthier, reduce pressure on the NHS, all while helping them into fulfilling and rewarding careers.’