Sick pay campaign

A coalition of health experts, charities and organisations, including the PDA pharmacists’ union, has called on the government to fix the UK’s “broken sick pay system”.

The call came as new Office for National Statistics figures showed economic inactivity due to long-term sickness has climbed to a record high. There were 2.576 million people not in work due to long-term ill health in the quarter from April to June 2023.

The Safe Sick Pay campaign wrote to health secretary Steve Barclay calling for reforms to improve the chances of people with disabilities or long-term health conditions to stay in work.

These include abolishing the earnings threshold for Statutory Sick Pay (SSP), making SSP payable from the first day of sickness, increasing SSP in line with a worker’s wages up to the real living wage, and developing a flexible SSP model that allows for a phased return to work and income protection for workers.