News

The government has today (26 November) published the Getting Britain Working White Paper, announcing wide-ranging measures to tackle economic inactivity.

As part of the government employment reform plan, the largest for a generation, the three Yorkshire mayors will receive up to £10m each as an initial allocation to run schemes which will mobilise local work, health and skills support. The plan includes three NHS accelerators to stop people falling out of work completely due to ill health, which will be piloted in the north-east of England, South Yorkshire and West Yorkshire.

The UK is the only major economy that has seen its employment rate fall over the last five years, which has been largely driven by a significant rise in the number of people out of work due to long-term ill health with an outdated employment support system which is ill equipped to respond to this growing challenge.

As our continuing work in this area shows, Yorkshire and the Humber has the third lowest percentage of people in employment in England and a record 2.8 million people are out of work because of long-term sickness. Health Innovation Yorkshire & Humber has been convening partners from across the region to identify and share best practice initiatives which have already been, or are in the process of being, established to support those with ill-health get back into employment where appropriate, and help ensure those currently in work stay healthy and remain in employment.

Together, we have already recognised the scale of this challenge, and the role organisations can play in addressing economic inactivity. Our Health and Work web section acts as a dynamic repository for these important initiatives.

Richard Stubbs, Chief Executive of Health Innovation Yorkshire & Humber said:

“We’re pleased to see this positive next step from the government towards tackling economic inactivity. Yorkshire and the Humber offers the perfect test bed for trialling new devolved powers and ways of working that could close health and economic disparities and make a significant contribution to the government’s missions.

Our YHealth for Growth white paper demonstrates that by collaborating across sectors, we can unleash the power of devolution to do even more. Now is the perfect time to help plot a path towards meaningful change and we hope that the 10 recommendations in our white paper can help local leaders to close health and economic disparities in our region.”

Find out more about the employment reform on the government website.

Read about the work we are doing across Yorkshire and the Humber in our Empowering Local Places for Health and Prosperity white paper.