Key points from Mental health and employment (DWP report 513)
Submitted by Daniel on Wed, 16/07/2008 - 12:17pm
As the summary on the DWP site isn't terribly helpful, we've extracted the key points for moving people into work from this report. The report itself covers the entire employment process, but did not cover Pathways to Work areas and thus has a limited amount to say about it.
The following points seemed the most interesting for welfare to work providers:
- Mental health-related IB claimants typically wanted to be in employment and understood the benefits that could derive from work
- Claimants generally moved into work once their condition improved. This means that they did not normally discuss mental health issues with interviewers
- Disability Employment Advisers were found to be very helpful, mainstream advisers less so
- Employers gave mixed responses about the usefulness of being told of interviewee's conditions, but in any case were not usually informed at the interview stage
- Mandatory interviews were not seen as terribly helpful - 'for many people who are out of work because of mental ill health, there is often a period of time when they are not ready mentally to enter into discussions about a return to work. Only when people feel ‘better’ do they make (often rapid) progress towards work.'
- The report was broadly supportive of the Pathways to Work regime (although without reviewing it in practice), but urged flexibility in applying mandatory interview conditions to customers with mental health problems
The full report is available here (pdf).
Comments
if a person is recieving mental health input, including mind altering drugs, can they cliam diminished responsability if decision making flawed, and cliams ( not unentiteled to ) the wrong benifit, i.e. income support , whilst in and out of employment , as opposed to the NOW awarded D.L.A. ??????
Benefit rules don't normally exempt claimants with mental health issues from following the claim process to the best of my knowledge, but I'm not a trained benefit adviser and couldn't give a 100% assurance. I would suggest getting claim support from an independent adviser (e.g. the CAB or your mental health support team / CPN) if you feel you may be having difficulty in handling the process.
Any behaviour by someone with a severe mental illness may always be due to the illness. So no sanction on them can ever be fair.
This concept of sanctions is new and it is going to cause fear and distrust from all people with these illnesses. They need to be put in the support group where they are free of the threat of sanctions before it is safe for them to attempt to try new things. Remember they may have been in mental hospital against their will, homeless, destitute, in prison all due to the illness. They may be paranoid - they may hear voices shouting in their head.
It just isn't fair to threaten them. They will never relax and try to achieve new things if advisors have this power of sanctions over them. Would you in that situation? Would you try things when you don't know how your behaviour will be at any time?
I think the DWP must reconsider rulings regarding mental health. In time, I am certain that they will have numerous suicides on their hands, alongside the court of human rights on their back. This ruling is out right discrimination.
*Joe- Many people who have severe mental illness do not take drugs, simple because they do not want to accepted they have a mental health issues in the first place. And CPNs cannot force someone to take medications unless they are a danger to themselves or others. Given the nature of changes to the welfare system, advisors dealing with people who have mental health issues could be seen to be forcing people to take medication. I would not want to be in their shoes!! This will mean that many of the most vulnerable people who need mental health services will simply drop off the radar, emding up homeless or exploited.
Joe- the drugs you talk about do not alter people's mind lol lol lol . Anti-psychotic drugs are not given to everyone but, are used for: anxiety, bipolar and schiz... The type of drug given, depends (from what I have observed) on which pharmaceutical company is promoting their latest drug.
The preasure group 'Compass' have been campaiging against this welfare reforms ruling.
Joe - people on the old incapacity benefit with mental health problems would have had to originally fill in claim forms, but once on IB, if they had a *VERY* (very very) severe condition I believe they could be exempted from having to undergo regular medicals.
Everyone else on IB would need to attend medicals as and when required.
The new ESA system on the other hand is going to test almost everyone (if not everyone) as far as i know.
Rules on what the DWP can forgive or not are rather complex, so you really would need to see a specialist advisor about how a mental health condition could affect your rights/decisions made about you. Be aware though, just because a right is supposed to be present does not always mean the DWP will use that right, sometimes they dont,either through not being aware of their duties, or some other reason.
Mandy/Lisa, totally agree - suicides more than likely, as will be rise in crime/homelessness etc etc.
Plus many people will have their mental health considerably damaged by the new system/reforms, causing them to possibly never recover, or certainly set them back years, at the end of the day, this is going to be a massive cost to the public purse.
It will certainly destroy any hope of many people getting back into work who would have otherwise had some chance of recovery, and put a much larger drain on NHS resources as peoples' conditions deteriorate.
Ukbix I agree with you on this point:
"It will certainly destroy any hope of many people getting back into work who would have otherwise had some chance of recovery, and put a much larger drain on NHS resources as peoples' conditions deteriorate".