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Why preventing long-term sickness in the UK is an economic necessity
(www.theguardian.com)
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this post was submitted on 23 Jul 2024
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Great aim but I don't see what this Labour government is going to do to make the situation better given the last government couldn't nor could the last Labour government for that matter.
We've gone from it being worse in work than out on benefits, to Universal Credit, to being stigmatised for being long term ill such that why would you bother.
Harder choices than what we're prepared for are needed. Good luck to them ๐.
The last Labour government
had an NHS waiting list that was in the region of hours, not weeks.
over doubled NHS funding
presided over the NHS having it's fastest increase in spending in its history
built a shitload of new NHS facilities and expanded capacity
had NHS staff that were paid way more fairly and didn't experience the extreme burnout we're seeing now
massively improved NHS dentistry
presided over the highest NHS satisfaction rating in its history
had what the WHO and others cited as being the best overall healthcare system on the planet
I'm not saying it was perfect. The IT system overhaul was a bit of a flop, for example. But Labour left the NHS in the best state it has ever been in.
I don't see how you could look at Labour and the Conservatives on health and say "both parties are the same"
But did I say that? Did I really? That seems like a misunderstanding of what I said.
The last Labour government did a lot of good in the NHS. Correct. ๐.
Specifically on long term sickness and getting people back to work, however, I don't recall them having solved the issues. In fact there was a lot of news about people being better off out of work rather than in work. Hence the Tory attempt at UC to give people "purpose". That was the whole thing with Ian Duncan Smith, he didn't see how paying people to stay at home long term sick was better for them than giving them work opportunities.
So whilst I agree Labour and Conservative records are vastly different, neither have solved the issues of long term sickness have they?
That doesn't really line up with new Labour achieving (at the time) record levels of employment, nor does it line up with the data on the amount of people claiming sickness absence: source (ONS)
As you can see, it fell from a rate of 3% in 1997 to 2.2% in 2010. It never increased under Labour.
Now, in fairness, it did drop to 1.8% for the Tories, but once COVID hit, the backlogs created for the NHS (in significant part due to the deterioration of the NHS), we have been unable to bounce back quickly.
The data also shows 184 million days were lost in 1997, which labour got down to 132 million in 2010. It remained stagnant under the Tories, then ramped up after Covid.
Seems to me like Labour were massively successful in reducing sickness leave.
So coming back to this, tbh (to me) that sounds like it could be the usual bashing of benefits "scroungers". The data doesn't back it up, people just thought Labour's generous benefits was making everyone be lazy, facts be damned.