Arthritis and Employment

Mary Robinson Excerpts

Tuesday 21st May 2019 Westminster Hall

[Bill Grant]

Those three elements are indeed linked. Flexibility is the key. Employers and managers have to understand that those suffering from arthritis have good days and, as I will come on to later, bad days. We need to adapt the workplace and be flexible.

The symptoms may be identified in very young children or occur at any time in a person’s life. More than half of the 17.8 million people in the UK with arthritis and related conditions experience daily pain. The condition severely impinges on their lifestyle, whether it be their ability to live independently, to care for family, to work, to travel or to take part in sports and hobbies, all of which, in some instances, may lead to social isolation. I recall at an event trying on a tight-fitting gauntlet with the purpose of experiencing the restrictions caused by arthritis of the wrist and hand. I was concerned to note how I lost my fine motor skills for even the simplest of tasks. It must be so frustrating to be faced with such difficulties on a daily basis.

[Mary Robinson (Cheadle) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this debate on such an important subject. He speaks about social isolation; many people who suffer from arthritis have not been able to work for years, such as my constituent Russell, who came to my surgery. One of the things he does is volunteer: he is an ambassador, who goes out and helps other people in his community in a really positive way. However, he and potentially others have found that when they get expenses for helping out, they are charged as if they were in employment. Does my hon. Friend feel it is important that we make sure that people who want to volunteer when they can are able to do so without that fear?

[Bill Grant]

I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention, and I wholeheartedly agree with her. The modest expenses of somebody who makes a special effort to go and volunteer should not affect any other income that individual may have.

In my constituency of Ayr, Carrick and Cumnock, the second most common reason for awards of personal independence payments was musculoskeletal disease, including osteoarthritis, inflammatory arthritis and chronic pain syndrome, which accounted for some 20% of awards in the constituency. That is similar to the UK average of around 21%. Those of us who attended Versus Arthritis’s recent event in Parliament heard about new research, illustrating that some 43% of people with arthritis struggled with tasks at home, and some struggled for in excess of two years before sourcing equipment that could assist them.