Improving Lives: The Work, Health and Disability Green Paper Our response to the Department for Work and Pensions and the Department of Health consultation

With less than half (48%) of disabled people in employment compared to 80% of the non-disabled population, this Green Paper from the Department of Health and the Department for Work and Pensions sets out a wide range of measures to support disabled people and those with long-term health conditions back to work.  

In our response, while we recognise the importance of good health for work, we argued that good work is also vital for good health and that the government has a responsibility to create environments, both in the workplace and in our wider physical environment, that support everyone’s opportunities for a healthy life in the UK. Our view is that the government should adopt a ‘health in all policies’ approach, mobilising the widest possible government resources to address the inter-related social determinants of health, including work.

We also outlined the importance of moving beyond traditional research and evaluation methodologies to facilitate a better understanding of interventions relating to work and health that operate in a complex system. We therefore urged the government to facilitate the use of novel approaches to data and data linkage, which can provide better understanding of the relationships between work and health.