GPs will be urged not to sign people off work in a bid to cut long-term sickness in next month's Budget, it is claimed.
Insiders claim Jeremy Hunt and top officials are looking at ways to cut the number of people on long-term sickness following the Covid pandemic.
But it has sparked alarm that people with conditions like Long Covid will be forced back into work when they are not well enough.
According to The Telegraph, the Treasury and Department for Work and Pensions are investigating ways of driving down sickness figures, with 2.3 million signed off with long term conditions last summer.
This is nearly 400,000 higher than in 2019, according to the Office for National Statistics (ONS).
The Chancellor is set to unveil his budget on March 15, and is expected to claim the move will help drive growth.
A government source told the newspaper: “The mental health benefits of work are well established.
"We want to do all we can to encourage as many people as possible to stay in work with the relevant support in place to help them do so, including signposting them to that support at the earliest possible opportunity.”
It is reported that medics will be told to encourage people to continue to work with support rather than signing them off.
It has sparked alarm, with Dr Deepti Gurdasani, epidemiologist and senior lecturer at Queen Mary University, posting on Twitter: "Yeah, this'll really help because long COVID and chronic illness responds so well to being forced to push through and work long hours regardless of how ill one feels..."
Mr Hunt is said to be plotting ways to put getting people off out-of-work benefits at the heart of next month's budget.
But officials say nothing has been decided yet.
A DWP spokesperson told The Mirror: “We’re considering a range of factors to address inactivity, and further details on this will be set out in due course.
"We wouldn’t comment on speculation ahead of the completion of the Workforce Participation review.”
Stephen Evans, chief executive of the Learning and Work Institute, told The Telegraph: "Ensuring health professionals take full account of that in working with people to decide how much they may be able to work makes great sense.
“Ultimately, most people want to go back to work when they are well enough to do so, and this approach can help make that happen.”
