According to The Health Foundation, health inequalities are growing in the UK and poor health is estimated to be costing the economy £100 billion per year in ‘lost productivity’. Since 2020, the number of people inactive has increased by 700,000 and between 2019 and 2022, the number of women inactive due to long-term sickness increased by 172,000 .
With the Department for Work and Pensions preparing to station job coaches at GP surgeries in an attempt to actively encourage people back into employment, evidence from the front-line indicates that government agencies are not best placed to provide solutions to tackle this issue.
An alternative, civil society-driven approach is now needed to make progress in this area and give the UK economy the boost it needs.
Nearly 1 in 4 of those inactive due to ill health want to work or are actively seeking employment but are unable to do so because of their health. With health inequalities so deeply embedded, supporting people back into the right kind of employment will require targeted intervention in areas of the country with high levels of socio-economic deprivation.
Grassroots organisations, embedded within the communities they serve, are best placed to lead on this through collaboration with businesses and the healthcare, housing, education and charity sectors.
In Liverpool, The Women’s Organisation has recently delivered a successful pilot project to support economically inactive people back into work. A third of Liverpool City Region’s neighbourhoods are in the top 10% most deprived nationally, with particularly high levels of health deprivation and an overall economic inactivity rate of 24%.
The Enterprise, Employment & Education programme encompasses confidence and resilience building, digital and financial literacy, childcare support and tailored coaching, taking a holistic approach to provide individuals with the tools to overcome systemic barriers to meaningful employment.
Supporting people who are out of work due to ill health is about more than education. It’s about rebuilding trust with communities who have, for too long, felt disenfranchised and underrepresented, helping them to turn on the tap of ambition and hope.
By offering person-centred support to economically inactive people, this programme has already provided people with the essential building blocks needed to find meaningful employment, particularly women and those from ethnic minority backgrounds.
These groups are disproportionately inactive in the employment market. Data from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development shows that, across the UK, women are almost 60% more likely to be economically inactive than men, and ethnic minorities are 50% more likely to be inactive than individuals from a white background.
Of course, many people will also fall across these social boundaries, with women from ethnic minority backgrounds even more likely to be economically inactive. However, bring ill health into the equation and we can begin to better understand the range of social factors that keep millions of people in the UK out of work.
The World Health Organisation suggests that social determinants of health can be more important than healthcare or lifestyle choices in influencing ill health outcomes, and The King’s Fund notes that people in the most deprived areas spend around a third of their lives in poor health, which is twice the proportion spent by those in the least deprived areas.
Against the backdrop of a shrinking economy, tackling Britain’s health inequalities through meaningful, person-centred support is fundamental to bringing many economically inactive people back into the workplace and allowing UK businesses to thrive.
From experience, we know that a civil society-driven approach works and that real collaboration between organisations at the heart of their communities is pivotal to turning the tide on both regional health inequalities and economic inactivity.
While the government deploys its staff to take up space in GP waiting rooms, organisations will need to scale and accelerate a grassroots-led approach to reintegrating people into the workplace across the UK – because a system of support that empowers people is one which is key to reversing the UK’s economic downturn.
- Professor Maggie O’Carroll is chief executive of The Women’s Organisation, the largest developer and deliverer of training and business support for women in the UK. She co-founded the organisation in 1996 and has helped to shape women’s economic development policy on a local, national and international basis. Her work has been recognised across the UK, with business accolades including Entrepreneurs' Champion of the Year and Social Leader of the Year. She also won the Business Person of the Year award at the Liverpool Echo & Business Live Regional Business Awards in 2022.
