GP incentives to end sick note culture

John Hutton says doctors may be given bonuses for not signing people off as incapable

Sunday, 22, Jan 2006 12:00

Doctors may be offered financial bonuses for signing fewer people off as eligible for incapacity benefit, according to work and pensions secretary John Hutton.

Mr Hutton said the government wanted to shake up the current welfare policy, so that "people don't just end up on benefit when there are other options".

He added that cash incentives may be offered to GPs to encourage patients back to work, as part of the government's welfare green paper, which is to be published this week.

"It has been mooted and I think, again, this is something we would like to talk to the GPs about," he told BBC One's Sunday AM.

Mr Hutton also said that the name for incapacity benefit would change, as it suggested that people were incapable of finding work.

Ministers want to reduce 2.7 million people currently claiming the benefit, at an annual cost of £12.5 billion, by about one million.

But Mr Hutton insisted that if people were seriously disabled, they should not be expected to work, saying: "We are here to help."

He added that the scheme was already running in some areas, where doctors work alongside employment advisors to determine what jobs people requiring a sick note could do instead.