Almost a million people who applied for sickness benefit have instead been found fit for work, according to the latest government figures.
A third (32%) of all new claimants for Employment and Support Allowance (ESA) were assessed as being fit to work and capable of employment between October 2008 and March 2013. This totals 980,400 people.
More than a million others withdrew their claims before reaching a face-to-face assessment - this can be due to individuals recovering and either returning to work, or claiming a benefit more appropriate to their situation, the Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) said.
Employment and Support Allowance is an income replacement benefit provided to people of working-age who are too ill to work because of a health condition or disability. It replaced Incapacity Benefit, Income Support and Severe Disablement Allowance for new claimants from October 2008.
2.49 million people were on ESA and old-style incapacity benefits as of May 2013. Under the old system, 2.6 million people were receiving incapacity benefits when ESA was introduced in 2008.
In August 2010, 900,000 had been claiming the sickness benefit for more than a decade, the DWP said.
Under the new system, claimants are assessed as to whether they are fit for work the Work Capability Assessment (WCA). These tests have come under fire by disability rights groups for judging that people with progressive disabilities are fit for work.
Minister of state for disabled people Mike Penning said: "As part of the government's long-term economic plan, it is only fair that we look at whether people can do some kind of work with the right support - rather than just writing them off on long-term sickness benefits, as has happened in the past.
"With the right support, many people with an illness, health condition or disability can still fulfil their aspiration to get or stay in work, allowing them to provide for themselves and their family."
However, Richard Hawkes, chief executive of disability charity Scope warned these results were "only half the story" as "we should be talking about getting a million more disabled people into work."
He said disabled people face "massive challenges" when finding and staying in work as they are often not provided with the right support or flexibility from workplaces.
He added: "The WCA should be more than an exercise in getting people off of benefits. It should make sure disabled people get the specialist, tailored and flexible support they need to find and keep a job.
"Instead the test is beset with problems including high rates of successful appeals, assessors resigning and public criticism from the Public Accounts Committee and National Audit Office. We have also witnessed shocking undercover footage of how Atos assessors are trained and heard horror stories of disabled people inappropriately found fit to work."
