Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what recent estimate her Department has made of the proportion of disability benefit claimants who are on a waiting list for NHS treatment.

• There were 7.4 million NHS Referral to Treatment (RTT) pathways where the patient was waiting to start treatment at the end of April 2025 (this includes all ages).
• The number of people (aged 16 to 64) not in work who left their job in the previous year for health reasons was 210,000 in 2023/24.
• One in every 10 working-age people in Britain is now claiming at least one type of health or disability benefit and as outlined in the Pathways to Work Green paper, when this government took office last July:

o 2.8 million people were economically inactive due to long-term sickness

o the number claiming health related benefits with no requirement to work has increased by 800,000 since 2019/2020.

• The Work Aspirations of Health and Disability Claimants survey found that a third (32%) of those claiming health and disability benefits believe they can work now or in future. 5% say that they would be ready now if the right job or support were available. This equates to around 200,000 individuals.

DWP and DHSC work closely, for example through the Joint Work and Health Directorate, to deliver better work outcomes and work experiences for disabled people and people with health conditions. This includes working across the whole of the customer journey to help disabled people and people with long term health conditions who want to work to be in the best position possible to do so.

The Joint Work and Health Directorate is collaborating with the Office for National Statistics (ONS) to improve the evidence on the relationship between health and labour market outcomes. The ONS plans to link NHS waiting times data (that they recently acquired access to) to Census, DWP Benefits and HMRC PAYE records to analyse the relationship between waiting time duration (for various health conditions and procedures) and labour market outcomes (such as employment status, gross pay and benefit receipt) in England. This may shed light on the role of extended waiting times witnessed during and after the COVID-19 pandemic on benefit receipt, including sickness related benefit receipt. Due to many dependencies and unknowns, ONS is not able to confirm when the analysis will be available.