According to , health inequalities are growing in the º£½ÇÊÓƵ 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 and between 2019 and 2022, the number of women inactive due to long-term sickness .
With the Department for Work and Pensions 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 º£½ÇÊÓƵ economy the boost it needs.
Nearly 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 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 shows that, across the º£½ÇÊÓƵ, 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 º£½ÇÊÓƵ out of work.
The suggests that social determinants of health can be more important than healthcare or lifestyle choices in influencing ill health outcomes, and 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 º£½ÇÊÓƵ 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 º£½ÇÊÓƵ – because a system of support that empowers people is one which is key to reversing the º£½ÇÊÓƵ’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 º£½ÇÊÓƵ. 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 º£½ÇÊÓƵ, 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 in 2022.
