GPs To Lose Right To Manage Patients Long-Term Illness
In February this year, the Tory-led Con-Dem(ned) coalition announced a review of long term sick leave because of concerns about the so-called sick-note culture in the UK.
As always, the media lies were used as justification by the government, despite there being absolutely no evidence that such a culture exists.
Of course, no one wants to look at the causes of work related ill health, rather than penalise the individual and slander the UK workforce by claiming a culture of laziness and false claims of ill health is endemic!
At the time the review was announced, TUC General Secretary Brendan Barber said:
"If this were to be a genuine attempt to support those on long-term sickness get back to work then the TUC would welcome it with open arms. However we are concerned that it will end up as just another part of the Government's cost-saving onslaught on the income and rights of those at work, and those on benefits.
The fact that the review is being conducted by a leading voice of employers' interests, with no corresponding involvement from unions representing workers affected by sickness absence, gives us little confidence in the outcome."
Well, 9 months into the review and the TUC’s concerns have been borne out.
This weekend saw the media push the government line in news reports extolling the virtue of removing GPs from the sick note process and using independent assessors e.g. ATOS Health who are currently involved in the highly controversial scheme of getting the disabled off benefit and into work.
The Guardian newspaper on Saturday reported:
“People should be signed off for long-term sick leave by an independent assessor rather than their GP, a government review will recommend.
The independent review, due to be published next week, is also expected to call for businesses to be given tax breaks for hiring patients with continuing and unpredictable conditions.
The welfare minister, Lord Freud, said the reforms could lead to "fewer wasted lives". He said the government wanted to intervene earlier to stop patients drifting into unnecessary ongoing state support.”
He went further and seemed to suggest that people on long-term sick could actually do two jobs! The news article suggested this as follows:
‘Freud signalled that the new independent assessment would consider what work someone seeking long-term sick leave could do and not just consider whether they were able to continue their current job.’
The article continued:
‘The Independent Review of Sickness Absence, led by Professor Dame Carol Black, the UK's national director for health and work, and the former head of the British chambers of commerce David Frost, is looking at ways of cutting the estimated £60bn cost of working-age ill health.
Black told the BBC:
"What the GPs say is they don't have time to do an in-depth functional assessment and nor have they had any training in occupational health so we think it's providing a new unique service that both employers and GPs need."
Frost said when people were off sick for longer than four weeks they started "to lose the will to work".
"What we've got to do is to find a way of actually working with them, encouraging them and providing real, practical help. And that's what the assessment service would do," he told the BBC.’
Concern was shown by the medical profession in the form of the the deputy chair of the British Medical Association's GPs committee, Dr Richard Vautrey.
The news item stated that he warned that if the reforms turned out to be "a punitive process just to try and save money without the best interests of the patient at the heart of the process then it will fail".
The article does not quote anyone form within the trade union movement, but does quote one Labour MP Dennis Skinner as saying:
"Last year, the government said GPs should be accountants in charge of the money that is spent in the NHS. This year they want assessors to be GPs. It's crazy. No wonder the country is going to the dogs."
The Guardian article also reminds us of the direction in which the coalition government is going:
‘The proposed reforms come as the government is embarking on a major and controversial overhaul of the welfare state. The first independent attempt to quantify the impact of more stringent medical tests and the greater use of means testing warned that the tough welfare reforms will force over half a million people off incapacity benefit and cause widespread poverty in some of Britain's most disadvantaged communities.
Around 600,000 people would disappear from the benefits system altogether under changes to be introduced by 2014 and would often have to rely on family members for financial support, warned researchers from Sheffield Hallam University.’
As stated previously by Unionsafety, all this shows that we are heading down the road of forcing an American culture on the country with Health and Safety, employment rights, welfare, and now sickness benefits being attacked. This is surely further proof that the government is quickly turning the country into the United Kingdom of America!
It must be remembered that the USA has the worst employment rights and welfare system in the whole of the western world.
You can download the full review report from the E-Library Database by using keyword 'sickness'.
Souce: The Guardian / The Independent / DWP
