Improving Lives: The Work, Health and Disability Green Paper

This green paper sets out the government’s proposals on ways to halve the disability employment gap disabled people and people with long-term health conditions.

Download Improving Lives: The Work, Health and Disability Green Paper

This includes:

• equal access to labour market opportunities with the necessary support to stay and progress in work
• helping employers take action to create a workforce that reflects society, managing an ageing workforce with potentially increased chronic conditions
• accessing the right employment and health services, at the right time and in a way which is personalised to their circumstances and integrated around their needs
• more effectively integrating the health and social care and welfare systems to help disabled people and people with long-term health conditions move into and remain in sustainable employment
• put mental and physical health on an equal footing, to ensure people get the right care and prevent mental illness in the first place
• invest in innovation to gain a better understanding of what works, for whom, why and at what cost
• change cultures and mind-sets across all of society so that the focus is on the strengths of disabled people and what they can do

Currently the government says it is working jointly across the whole of government, significantly improving its employment support, working with health partners and investing £115 million of funding to develop new models of support to help people into work when they are managing a long-term health condition or disability.

The green paper asks questions about:

• the role expected of employers
• the role of work coaches
• changes to the welfare system
• promoting mental and physical health, including timely access to the health and employment support
• developing better occupational health support
• ways to reinforce work as a health outcome in commissioning decisions and clinical practice
• encouraging, harnessing and spreading innovation to ensure that commissioners know what works best in enabling disabled people and people with health conditions to work
• building a culture of high hopes and expectations for what disabled people and people with long-term health conditions can achieve

The closing date for responses to this consultation is 11.45pm Friday 17th February 2017.