Roger Godsiff – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Roger Godsiff on 2016-01-14.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what steps his Department is taking to improve the back-to-work support which is available for people with mental health problems.

Alistair Burt

We are working with the Department for Work and Pensions and other government departments through the Work and Health Unit. Over the next three years the Work and Health Unit are investing over £43 million in a range of voluntary mental health and employment trials to test what works in improving both the employment and health outcomes for people with common mental health problems. The Work and Health Unit will also invest around £115 million in testing wider support to improve health and employment outcomes. Additionally, The Improving Access to Psychological Therapies programme has already helped over 100,000 people to move off sick pay and benefits, with nearly 25,000 moving off in 2014/15.

In each of the last five years the Department of Health has not provided specific central programme funding for back-to-work support for people with mental health problems.