Greater Manchester 'Fit For Work' Service Pilot

As a result of a bid led by the Commission for the New Economy, the SHA and the Pathways Community Interest Company, Greater Manchester has been awarded £450k to pilot a 'fit for work' service for 1500 people across Greater Manchester from April 2010 – an intervention to prevent those already in work but with a health condition that is putting their job at risk from slipping out of work. There is a suggestion that this upstream intervention can be more effective and better value than support provided once people are out of work due to ill health. Greater Manchester had the opportunity to secure this funding under the Department of Work and Pensions agreement with the Statutory City Region to pilot initiatives.

This opportunity takes its place in the context of a number of jointly commissioned or hosted projects between the Association of Greater Manchester Primary Care Trust and Public Health Network, and the Commission for the New Economy, which includes: the baseline assessment commissioned from CLEs focusing on the NHS offer to address worklessness, Greater Manchester hosting the Regional Health work and well being programmme, preparatory work for the medical reassessment of incapacity benefit claimants in March 2011.