In the UK, Jobcentre Plus is a UK government service under the Department for Work and Pensions (“DWP”) that helps people find work, claim benefits and access training. It was formed when the Employment Service merged with the Benefits Agency and was renamed Jobcentre Plus in 2002.
Now, Health Secretary Wes Streeting has announced that the NHS will take on some of the responsibilities of Jobcentres.
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Streeting has announced that the NHS in England will be set targets for getting people back to work. The plan is to link patient data to employment status and benefits claims, with the stated aim of assessing how much the health service boosts the economy.
Government ministers hope to use the NHS to address the issue of 9 million unemployed people of working age, of whom 2.8 million are long-term sick, 700,000 above pre-covid levels. Spending on incapacity and sickness benefits has also been rising; sickness benefits are projected to exceed £100 billion by the end of the decade and the government is seeking to reduce sickness spending and keep people in work.
“[Ministers] want the health service to focus more on the employment status of those of working age, despite a traditional reluctance among clinical staff to take economic considerations into account in prioritising treatment,” the Financial Times reported today.
Local health boards will be told this week to develop nationwide employment targets following the success of early-stage pilots in areas such as Yorkshire, Cumbria and the North East, which have been offering treatments like cardiac rehabilitation and physiotherapy with the goal of getting patients back to work.
It is expected that officials will have agreed employment targets for each of England’s integrated care boards (“ICBs”) once the detailed evaluation of the pilots has been set out. This should happen in the coming months.
The targets are likely to include reducing the number of unemployed people in local areas by about 1 per cent and assessing how many patients stay in work or get jobs after targeted treatment. Employment coaches are also being used to offer patients practical advice on getting jobs after the NHS 10 year plan last year said the health service needed to recognise that work was good for people’s health.
(Note: The UK government’s ‘Fit for the Future: 10 Year Health Plan for England’ was published on 3 July 2025 by the Labour government under Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer. As we have previously mentioned, the plan to sequence and store the DNA of all babies born in England is also part of the NHS’ 10 year health plan.)
Initially, ICBs will not be penalised if they miss the targets but in future years, NHS payments will be linked to performance against these measures. Next year, officials plan to go further in pilot areas by linking patients’ NHS numbers to Office for National Statistics data on pay and employment, as well as government records of benefit claims.
The government is allocating an extra £25 million to the £45 million already being spent on pilots to prepare for a national rollout. Health Secretary Wes Streeting stated that the NHS will be made “accountable” for patients’ employment outcomes to drive better rehabilitation and long-term health.
However, the initiative has raised concerns, with former Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt warning that employment targets risk becoming another example of a worthy goal that will end up making the NHS more micromanaged and less effective. Others fear the rise of a “national health state” as the NHS takes on more responsibilities from other public services that have faced budget cuts.
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Categories: Breaking News, UK News