The latest spiffing idea to come from the Dept of Witless Pillocks (DWP) is to base a mental health co-coordinator in every Jobcentre, to “help people with conditions such as depression to find and stay in work.”
Ministers announced a new vision for mental health services that aims to reduce the £40 billion cost to the economy of conditions that are often “shrouded in mystery, stigma or simply forgotten”. Advice lines for small businesses will also offer employers direct access to occupational health professionals in nine pilot schemes.
The Government said that there would be no new money to support its New Horizons strategy, insisting that at least £5 million in funding could be found out of existing budgets.
The plans, published jointly by the Departments for Health and for Work and Pensions, follow a review led by Rachel Perkins, a specialist on mental health issues, on how to improve support for an estimated one million people who are off work or unemployed with mental health problems.
Up to 15 per cent of the population suffers from clinical anxiety or depression at any one time, but the plans also cover the knock-on effects of bipolar disorder and schizophrenia.
The new co-coordinators will be based in every Jobcentre Plus district at a cost of £1 million to improve job opportunities for people who may feel stigmatised or apprehensive of returning to work. A two-year pilot for the occupational health phone lines will cost a further £4 million. A pilot scheme to meet the costs of temporary staff when workers with mental health problems need to take time off have also been agreed by ministers.
Is this a chicken and egg conundrum? Does being out of work make people depressed, or does being in work make people depressed?
Will a Mental health coordinator make depressed people feel better, or is a way to refer them on to non existent therapists, for non existent treatment, or is it just a way to re categorize the depressed as “fit for work” so that they will have to take up the training schemes for non existent jobs?
Back to the chicken and egg; the Gov has caused the unemployment which causes people to be depressed, which will be “treated” by Mental health coordinators, which will stigmatise them even more, which will make them even more depressed, which will make finding a job even harder because how many employers will hire people with “mental health problems” which will depress them even more.......................ad infinitum.
Take a look at the picture.....does he seem depressed to you?
Angus
Angus Dei on all and sundry
AnglishLit
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