A general view of staff on a NHS hospital ward at Ealing Hospital in London
BRITAIN is getting sicker. New figures today showed the number of disabled people unable to work rose by 260,000 in a year.
Disability campaigners and Unison urged Labour to invest in the NHS to tackle rising levels of long-term illness after the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) revealed rates of economic inactivity are increasing among disabled people.
The figures showed that overall, the number of disabled people in employment grew, but an increase in the number of working-age disabled people meant a rise in the disability economic inactivity rate.
Plans to delay access to the universal credit health element until age 22 have triggered fierce opposition from disabled people’s groups, who warn it would deepen poverty and entrench discrimination against young disabled people under the guise of ‘encouraging work.’ DYLAN MURPHY reports
Labour will find increases in the state pension age are unacceptable, just as cuts to the Winter Fuel Allowance, personal independence payments and universal credit are — it needs to change direction immediately, writes PCS general secretary FRAN HEATHCOTE