Steve McCabe – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Work and Pensions
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Steve McCabe on 2016-04-08.
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, pursuant to the Answer of 29 January 2016 to Question 23980, on employment plans: mental illness, whether he plans to introduce new measures of support for people with mental health problems before the end of the three year period of voluntary trials.
Justin Tomlinson
The 2015 Spending Review announced at least £130 million a year in steady state funding on the new Work and Health Programme, which we plan to launch in 2017. With this new programme we plan to restructure our current provision to focus on providing the best possible support for claimants with health conditions or disabilities, including those with mental health conditions.
In addition, the Prime Minister has already announced plans to significantly improve the support that helps people with mental ill health retain or regain employment:
- Over £300 million will be provided to double access to talking therapies for people suffering from conditions like anxiety or depression.
- £50 million will be spent to double the reach of Individual Placement and Support Programmes, which find work for people with mental illness.
- over £50 million is being invested to more than double the number of IAPT (Improving Access to Psychological Therapies) employment advisors, so that they are linked in to every talking therapy service in the country.
- 29,000 more people with mental health conditions will be helped to find or stay in work thanks to increased access to these therapies.
