Failure to modify benefit is likely to increase pressure on NHS, researchers say

Universal credit is linked to an increase in “psychological stress” among the jobless people who claim it, according the first major study to quantify the impact of the government’s flagship welfare system on mental health.

The study found the introduction of universal credit across the UK was associated with a 6.6 percentage point increase in mental health issues among recipients compared with a comparison group who were in employment or retired.

This was the equivalent of an estimated 63,674 unemployed recipients experiencing significant forms of mental distress after signing up to the benefit, of whom a third were likely to have become clinically depressed, researchers concluded.

The Liverpool University study, published in the Lancet Public Health journal on Thursday, comes amid increasing concern about the impact on claimant mental health from welfare policy changes and cuts in recent years, which have reduced the real-terms value of benefits and made them more punitive and harder to access.

The researchers said that with another 5 million people expected to move on to universal credit over the next four years, failure to mitigate the stressful impact on claimants would be likely to exacerbate pressures on already-overstretched NHS mental health services.

“Our study supports growing calls for universal credit to be fundamentally modified to reduce these mental health harms,” said Dr Sophie Wickham, who led the research. “So far, the government has only looked at the impact of universal credit on the labour market, and there are no plans to assess its effect on health and wellbeing.”

Factors identified as potential universal credit “stressors” include a five-week wait for a first benefit payment, issues leading to high levels of claimant debt and rent arrears, sanctions punishments such as the removal of benefits, and difficulties accessing the mainly online system.

The study’s co-author Prof Dame Margaret Whitehead said: “Given the mounting evidence of substantial mental health harms related to universal credit, it is crucial that the government conducts a robust health impacts assessment of all welfare reforms, including universal credit.

“With nearly two-thirds of households in the UK receiving some kind of welfare benefit, any changes to the welfare system – even those with small individual effects – could have major implications for the nation’s health.”

The study found that universal credit did not appear to have a negative impact on the physical health of claimants. It also found no evidence that the system was associated with more people entering employment, one of the benefit’s key strategic aims.

The study was based on interviews with 52,000 people of working age conducted between 2009 and 2018. It excluded people with a disability who claimed other benefits. The authors acknowledged that the study showed “observational associations rather than cause and effect”.

A qualitative study published by Newcastle and Teesside Universities last year into how low-income claimants in the north-east of England coped with universal credit found that it had so profoundly affected claimants’ mental health that some had considered suicide.

Responding to the Lancet study, Ayaz Manji, a senior policy officer at the charity Mind, said: “It’s wrong that the benefits system … is causing psychological distress among people who need support. We need to see radical solutions to ensure that the benefits system plays its part in helping people stay well.”

Labour’s Mike Amesbury, the shadow employment minister, said the study showed universal credit was not working. “This is the latest in a long line of damning independent reports into the impact that universal credit is having on people’s lives … Our social security system should have dignity and security at its heart.”

Iain Porter, a policy manager at the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, said: “Our social security system should provide a public service people can turn to when they hit hard times. There is nothing compassionate or just about the rollout of universal credit increasing levels of anxiety and stress among low-income families.”

A Department for Work and Pensions spokesperson said: “This research does not prove that people are experiencing distress due to the design of universal credit.

“People coming to the jobcentre are often doing so at a difficult time in their lives, and there is a range of support available for those with mental health conditions.

“We know that the vast majority of people on universal credit are satisfied with their experience.”

• This article was amended on 28 February 2020. The study is published in the Lancet Public Health journal, not the Lancet as an earlier version said. This has been corrected.