Early intervention needed to stop rising incapacity benefits
The protection industry has a crucial role to play in getting people back to work, according to the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP).
Speaking at the COVER Protection Forum, Professor Mansel Aylward, chief medical adviser and medical director at the DWP stressed the importance of early intervention to help control employee absenteeism and cut the growing cost of State disability benefits.
"If you do not do something about people claiming benefits in the first year, you may as well forget about it," he said.
Quoting current Government statistics, Aylward said that of the one million people who report sick each week, 3,000 remain off work for six months, and 80% of these will not return to work again in the next five years.
Aylward added that the projected £11bn spent on sickness absence is an underestimate and that sickness absence actually costs industry over £30bn a year when indirect costs are included.
The main drivers for the growth in benefit receipt are mental and behavioural disorders, said Aylward, with an increasing number of stress-related claims being made.
"The problem is not that too many people are on benefits, but that people are staying on benefits too long and these people have mental health problems."
Despite the rise in stress-related claims, Aylward is not convinced that the number of people suffering from mental illness is increasing. Referring to the situation five years ago when claims for musculoskeletal were far greater than those for mental health, Aylward said: "Five years ago, 14% of claims were for mental health problems and 40% were for musculoskeletal.
"What is happening? Have people got dramatically better from musculoskeletal? I do not know. It could simply be a change of label. I think we have a more liberal attitude to mental health problems, as there is no longer a stigma attached to it."
Despite the increase in the number of people claiming Incapacity Benefit, Aylward added that the future is not all doom and gloom, but warned that the current level of benefits being paid out cannot continue.
