Shaping future support: the health and disability green paper

In our response to Shaping future support: the health and disability green paper (which can be downloaded from the right hand side of this page), we have welcomed the acknowledgement that disabled people can be receiving benefits and in work at the same time. There are many prevailing images in our society that position disabled people as ‘on benefits’ or in work.

However, we had concerns about some of the proposals in the paper. They include the following:

• New guidance on sickness absence and managing disabled people. This guidance is coming from the Health and Safety Executive (HSE). Disabled people have so long had to fight against being seen as a ‘health and safety’ risk at work. We therefore see this as unhelpful positioning – particularly when a cross-Government Disability Unit had been established to bring each Government department together to join up providing better support and outcomes for disabled people. At the very least, we hope that disabled people have been involved in creating this guidance.
• Access to Work. The paper again asks how Access to Work can better support work opportunities for disabled people. Section 3 of our response reiterates what our members and disabled employees working in our members’ organisation say would improve the Access to Work process. This includes speeding up the process and making Access to Work available much earlier in someone’s job search ‘journey’. There is currently no support to provide people with adjustments to help them look for a job, contact prospective employers, or complete job applications and recruitment assessments prior to an interview.
• Transitioning from education to employment. The aims and purpose of the Access to Work Passport needs to be revised. There continues to be a concern among our membership that passports too easily give disabled employees unrealistic expectations of transferring adjustments from one job to another, of from education to employment. Passports also often have the effect of conversations between the line managers and the employee not happening when an individual’s job changes. This often means an employee does not get all the support and adjustments they need when their job changes.
• Personal Independence Payments (PIP). Many disabled people are using their PIP to fund medical equipment, medicines, and care services, and they are also using it to fund adjustments to keep them in work. The green paper also considers people “voluntarily” swapping their PIP for “access to aids, appliances, and services” – the things that are, or should be, already available to them. This worried disabled people we spoke to, and we have urged that this proposal does not go forward.
• Confusing occupational therapy and occupational health. The paper explains use of occupational health in work and health discussions. However, the case studies in this section describe occupational therapy support. We have asked the Government to clarify its proposal here.

Overall, some of the proposals are worrying and have caused disabled people anxiety about if they will continue to get the support, aids, and services that they need and already have access to. We are also hugely disappointed that the health setting does not feature enough in the paper, particularly following the work and publication of the Government’s Health is Everyone’s Business proposals, which defined that the three settings – welfare, work, and health – need to stay close to one another to join up provision and support for disabled people.

We would like to thank everyone – employers and disabled employees – who got in touch and told us their views and their stories. This input helped us ‘test’ our thinking and define the position we have taken. As always, we would like to hear your feedback on our submission. Please contact us at policy@businessdisabilityforum.org.uk

“The focus is always on saving money, not quality of life”

(A disabled employee’s words when telling us their thoughts on the green paper)