The government have denied that work and pensions secretary Liz Kendall said work coaches would visit mental health patients whilst they are in hospital, in spite of this claim still appearing on the BBC website.
Earlier this month the BBC ran a story headlined Mental health patients could get job coach visits
The article opened “Job coaches could visit mental health patients when they are in hospital to help them get back to work, the government has said.”
It went on to explain that Kendall had told the BBC that trials of employment advisers giving CV and interview advice in hospitals produced "dramatic results".
In a quote that was later removed from the BBC website, Kendall said "We really need to focus on putting those employment advisers into our mental health services. It is better for people. It is better for the economy. We just have to think in a different way."
The proposal received a strong and immediate backlash from mental health charities, appalled at the idea of trying to move in-patients into work.
On 21 October MP Sorcha Eastwood tabled a written question “To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, which organisations she consulted on the proposal of having job coaches visit mental health patients in hospital.”
Answering on her behalf yesterday, DWP minister Alison McGovern claimed:
“The Secretary of State has made no announcement regarding having job coaches visit mental health patients in hospital and therefore did not consult any organisations. She was referring to her experience visiting a severe mental illness Individual Placement and Support programme.”
However, the NHS page on Individual Placement and Support services seems to suggest that they work within community mental health teams rather than on acute wards within hospitals.
Whatever the truth of the conflicting accounts by the BBC and the DWP, it seems that there is no longer any prospect of ill-trained work coaches roaming mental health hospital wards offering CV writing and interview practice sessions.
