Incapacity benefit reforms need medical support, warns CBI

GPs and the Health and Safety Executive must work with employers to get more people off benefits and back into work, according to the CBI.

The response comes after the work and pensions secretary, David Blunkett, launched his “eight principles of welfare reform” to get many of the 2.7 million people living on incapacity benefit back into work, yesterday.

He pledged “a whole range of medical, social, therapeutic interventions to help people get off benefit and back into work”.

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Susan Anderson, director of human resource policy at the CBI, said working with health providers would help employers to judge when, and if, people can return to work.

But, she added, “Employers are already doing their bit – 60% of all firms offer rehabilitation programmes – and more regulation will not solve the problem.”