Employment: Epilepsy

(asked on 22nd January 2020) - View Source

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what assessment her Department has made of the adequacy of employment support available for people with epilepsy, and whether her Department plans to introduce new measures to improve the employment rate of people with epilepsy.


Answered by
Justin Tomlinson Portrait
Justin Tomlinson
This question was answered on 31st January 2020

The Government supports disabled people, including people with epilepsy, to enter employment and stay in work through programmes such as the Work and Health Programme and Access to Work.

The latest statistics for The Work and Health Programme were published in November 2019, covering the period up to August 2019. They showed that 73% of starts to the programme were for people with a health condition or disability. The figures are not disaggregated by health condition or disability, so we cannot say how many participants had epilepsy.

The latest Access to Work statistics, published in August 2019 and covering the period up to March 2019, show that around 2.5% of people supported by the scheme give ‘Epilepsy’ as their primary medical condition.

In December 2019 we launched the Intensive Personalised Employment Support Programme. This is a new, voluntary, contracted employment provision designed to help disabled people with complex needs or barriers, including those with fluctuating conditions like epilepsy, who want to work but also require specialist support to achieve their goal of sustained employment.

We will publish a National Strategy for Disabled People before the end of 2020. This will look at ways to improve opportunities and access for disabled people in terms of housing, education, transport and jobs. The health and disability benefit system aspects of the strategy will be considered in a separate Green Paper. This will look at how we can further improve our support for people with disabilities and health conditions, supporting people into work where possible and enabling people to live independent lives.

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