Three-year alert that could help distressed staff keep their jobs

Patients who quit employment and claim benefits as a result of mental illness could be identified as long as three years before they stop working and helped to keep their jobs, research suggests.

A study led by Glasgow University said people suffering psychological distress visited their family doctor much more frequently in the run-up to giving up work.

They concluded that the signs a patient could go on to claim benefits were there three years before they left the workforce.

Experts welcomed the study yesterday, saying that acting early could prevent costs to the nation, as well as distress to patients.

The researchers for the latest study, led by Professor Jill Morrison in Glasgow, examined health and work data from thousands of people in Scotland and across the UK.

They found no evidence that GPs were inappropriately signing people off sick, suggesting differences in rates of sick notes were instead due to different populations being more likely to be ill than others.

But the researchers did find a high number of consultations between GPs and those patients who eventually went on to claim incapacity benefit for mental health problems.

The number claiming incapacity benefit and severe disablement allowance has increased by more than 300 per cent in the past 30 years in the UK, the study said, and the annual cost to the UK economy stands at more than 100 billion.

Writing online in the British Medical Journal (BMJ), the researchers suggested there might be more effective ways of keeping people off benefits and in work.

They said: "Much current policy is aimed at getting people who are on long-term benefit back to work.

"It might, however, be more effective to focus on keeping those vulnerable to becoming dependent on benefit in work, rather than getting them back into work after a long period of absence from the workplace.

"General practitioners are well placed to identify people who are vulnerable to becoming dependent on benefit up to three years before this occurs, by identifying frequent consulters with emotional distress."

Prof Morrison said there was no clear evidence of what action GPs could take which would make a difference to patients' chances of claiming benefits.

"One possibility might be at least if the GP can discuss it, remembering to ask about work and whether work is possibly causing problems, then they can advise the patient to discuss with their employer about any adjustments can be made to allow them to stay," she said.

Prof Morrison said she believed GPs were part of the solution to the problem, rather than the cause by handing out sick notes.

Simon Lawton-Smith, of the Mental Health Foundation, said: "We welcome this new research, which adds further weight to our own calls for early assessment and treatment in mental health issues."The early intervention approach has consistently been shown to be an effective way of minimising both the economic burden to the NHS and employers, as well as the degree of personal distress experienced by the individual".