Former health secretary Sir Jeremy Hunt fears society is ‘over medicalising’ the impact of normal traumatic events – and warned against signing people off work with anxiety and depression.
The Tory grandee, who held the role between 2012 and 2018, spoke out as the Government has faced stiff opposition from its own MPs against welfare reforms.
People with mental health conditions are believed to account for around half of the rise in working age adults claiming disability benefits in England and Wales since the pandemic, according to the Institute for Fiscal Studies.
The number of working-age adults in England and Wales paid disability benefits rose by nearly 1million people to 2.9million between 2019 and 2024, with 7.5 per cent of 16- to 64-year-olds claiming.
In a report in March, the Institute for Fiscal Studies calculated that about 500,000 of the rise is from mental health claimants.
