Last week Keir Starmer’s government announced that, to keep down the disability benefit bill next year, it would look to send job coaches into psychiatric wards to ready patients for work.
I spent a lot of time recently around psychiatric wards as a family member was in one for an extended period. These are places for people with complex needs. Indeed, many of those in the hospitals have jobs and careers – they just need help finding their way back to them. And that help must come from medical staff, the remarkable nurses and doctors who put so much of themselves into some of the most challenging environments.
