Every few years – maybe once or twice a decade – the working class in Britain decides not to work. There’s an outbreak of “swinging the lead”, “worklessness” or as current Work and Pensions Secretary Mel Stride and Prime Minister Rishi Sunak would have it today, a “sicknote culture”.
GPs – according to the Government – are too free and easy with these fit notes, and under their proposed reforms would lose the power to issue them, with that power passing to those employed by the Department for Work and Pensions. There are real dangers in this proposal. GPs have a duty to their patients’ well-being, whereas DWP employees, as we’ve seen before, can be set targets to reduce numbers and costs.on record.
The “parity of esteem” between physical and mental health that was promised in the 2012 Health and Social Care Act has failed to materialise. The British Medical Association estimates that And it’s not just at the level of national services either. Years of austerity in local government has stripped away voluntary sector services and public health budgets.