Health and Science Story

10 January 2009 00:35 BST

Welfare reforms 'must address mental health problems'

A number of leading organisations have called on the government to ensure that any welfare reforms introduced in the Queen's Speech provide the best support for people suffering with mental health problems.

The government is expected to announce a series of welfare reforms later today that would see parents of children aged 12 and over being made to go back to work or face losing benefits.

A joint statement released by Professor Dinesh Bhugra, president of the Royal College of Psychiatrists, Paul Farmer, chief executive of Mind, Angela Greatley, chief executive of Sainsbury Centre, and Paul Jenkins, chief executive of Rethink, calls for on the government to ensure the best possible support for people with mental health problems in finding and keeping jobs.

"People with mental health problems will be one of the largest groups affected by the welfare reform agenda. International research shows that people with mental health problems want to work and by doing what works the majority of people can be supported into employment," the statement declares.

The organisations claim that support should be offered to everyone with a minimal threat of benefit penalties.

They claim that taking too punitive an approach to those with mental problems would "seriously undermine" the government's ambition to reduce the overall number of people unemployed long term.

"In the last recession, many people with mental health problems were written off as unemployable when they lost their jobs," the statement claims.

"Another recession will undoubtedly put pressure on the government's initiatives to support people in finding and holding on to jobs. But we must ensure that we offer the right help at the right time to people experiencing mental distress, or we run the risk of creating a new 'lost generation'."