15th March 2005
'Any disabled person who wants to work should have the opportunity to work', was the key message delivered by speakers at the New Beginnings 'Ensuring Change' Symposium - the fourth annual meeting of New Beginnings, a coalition of key public and private sector stakeholders dedicated to developing strategies to help the UK's disabled people find work.
One of the keynote speakers was the Right Honourable Alan Johnson MP, Department of Work and Pensions Secretary of State, who presented on how the UK might become a world leader in disability. He also announced that the government is to publish its plans this summer to reform incapacity benefit and replace it with a system more focused on helping disabled people into work and keeping them there.
Johnson said:
In the summer, we will set out in detail in a Green Paper how we will radically change the benefit system so it reflects all that we have learnt about the needs of those on IB. Together - working with employers, GPs, special interest groups and claimants themselves - we can replace the sicknote culture with one of hope and opportunity.
Calling on interested parties to submit their thoughts to the department over the coming months, Johnson laid out four key areas for consideration:
- Fairness - what should be the content of the "return to work activities" that we recognise as beneficial in helping people with health conditions to get back to work.
- Security - how to minimise the risks people face when they want to move into work and ensure people have every incentive possible to try out work.
- Inclusion - how to ensure that the Disability Sickness Allowance doesn't mean someone is written off or has no interest in working but instead recognises the severity of their condition.
- Results for all - what key features does the system need to ensure that it works effectively for people with mental health conditions.
In support of the Symposium, Prime Minister Tony Blair sent a recorded video message, in which he admitted, despite real progress made through the Disability Discrimination Act and the creation of the Disability Rights Commission, that there was still a long way to go in improving the situation for disabled people.
We need to make better use of the talents and energy of disabled people for their sake and for our future prosperity as a country. For those unable to work, society has a responsibility to support them - and, I believe, to increase this support. But we also have a duty to help into work the many disabled people who want to work.
Professor Mansel Aylward CB, First Director of the UnumProvident Centre for Psychosocial and Disability Research at Cardiff University, focused on the way ahead for the UK and developing solutions.
Aylward said:
Rehabilitation cannot be a second stage after health care has failed, the principles of rehabilitation must be integrated into both clinical and occupational management.
Aylward added:
Getting all the stakeholders on side, including workers, health professionals, employers and the DWP, is very important and communication and common goals and understanding play a significant role in getting this to happen. No one stakeholder can do it alone.
One of the founding members of New Beginnings, Joanne Hindle, Corporate Services Director for the UK's leading disability insurer, UnumProvident, said there were a number of concerns to be addressed in the future.
Joanne Hindle said:
New Beginnings remains as focused as ever on the issue of disability and work, but now it is also time to look to the future. While we have achieved considerable improvements for disabled people over the past few years, key concerns for disabled people remain transport, attitudes and access.
Going forward, employers need support to help them offer flexible working and reasonable adjustments and health practitioners need to encourage patients to return to work. Work can be made available to those who can, but adequate rehabilitation is vital to its success.
Other speakers at the Symposium included: Dr John Low, Chief Executive of the RNID; Peter White, BBC disability affairs correspondent; Wolfgang Zimmerman, Executive Director of NIDMAR in Canada; Baroness Greengross, Patron of New Beginnings; and Susan Ring, Chairman and Managing Director of UnumProvident.
ENDS