Guidance

Letter: Individual Placement and Support in Primary Care (IPSPC) initiative

Updated 18 December 2023

Applies to England

Dated: 12 July 2022

Individual Placement and Support in Primary Care Initiative (IPSPC)

Dear Colleague,

I am delighted to be able to provide you with additional information following the launch of the joint Department for Work and Pensions and the Department for Health and Social Care’s Individual Placement and Support in Primary Care (IPSPC) initiative on 20 June. We announced that Combined Authorities and Upper Tier Authorities (LA) (including County, Metropolitan Councils, London Boroughs, and Unitary Authorities) in England can apply for Grant funding. With funding of up to £40 million available to support around six IPSPC services enabling the continued growth of IPS employment support.

This letter provides you with the guidance and success criteria for an application to the IPSPC fund. Applications should be made using the attached Grant Funding Application and returned to:

[email protected] by 5pm on 31 August 2022.

IPS is a proven model of employment support for people with severe mental health issues when embedded in secondary mental health services. It is shown to improve both health and employment outcomes for participants and is increasingly available around the country. Since 2018, trials in West Midlands Combined Authority (WMCA) and South Yorkshire Mayoral Combined Authority (SYMCA) have offered similar support for people with common physical or mental health disabilities in primary care settings. Wider literature has evidenced positive effects of IPS. DWP has applied the lessons learned from the trials to inform expansion of the IPSPC services.

This grant provides an excellent opportunity for Authorities to improve employment and health outcomes in their local area. Too often people face a negative experience of declining health which excludes them from work, often leading to long term worklessness, which in turn causes further deterioration in health. This is increasingly significant with the growth of common mental and physical health conditions post-Covid 19. This has led to increasing health-related disability and a consequent increase in worklessness. The number of working age people with health conditions who are outside the labour market has increased by over 10% over the last two years to 2.2million. Attached at Annex A are some indicators which demonstrate the prevalence of out-of-work health benefit receipt in local populations, the disability employment rate and the employment rate gap between disabled and non-disabled people.

Employment is known to be positive for good health. The NHS Long Term Plan recognises that mental health and musculoskeletal conditions remain the main reason for sickness absence increasing. Supporting people to access employment through IPSPC will build on individuals’ strengths and skills, enabling them to realise their potential for recovery. IPSPC will support inclusive growth and help to achieve a reduction in health inequalities.

For LAs to be able to deliver the expected benefits of IPSPC, stretching but realistic job outcome targets are required, with a focus on maximising sustained paid employment. Emphasising sustained employment, is important to improve Return on Investment (ROI) and help to ensure a sustainable IPSPC model is developed. We know that our ambition needs to be above performance levels achieved in the trials and have used this data to inform the outcome definitions outlined in the attached LA Grant Guidance document.

We have also looked at other DWP programme performance, in particular the Work and Health Programme (WHP) to inform the IPSPC performance targets. Whilst not a like for like comparison, the WHP has the most similar features to IPSPC. Both are aimed at similar cohorts of people e.g., disabled people who can or expect to move into work within 12 months. There are also strong similarities between the nature of the support requirement, the unit cost, the demographics of participants, including disability type, age and ethnicity.

From WHP performance data (Nov 2017 to Oct 2020) we can see between:

• 35 and 45% of programme starts achieving first earnings (a job start) and
• between 21% and 30% of total programme starts achieved an employment or self-employment outcome. This is similar to IPSPC 26-week higher threshold job outcome

Through providing both Grant funding and the design framework, we will enable the delivery of high-quality IPSPC support which adheres to the IPS fidelity model and is complementary to the planned wider expansion of IPS services across England. The longer-term ambition of this initiative is to help build sustainable locally led services delivering effective employment support. Delivered through existing primary and community NHS Services, IPSPC will apply a modified version of the eight principles of IPS (see Q&A attached for principles). IPSPC will be integrated with an individual’s normal health treatment encouraging recognition of employment as a driver of an individual’s health and wellbeing. It will provide support to people out of work and those needing support with their health issues to stay in work.

IPS Grow will support the delivery of IPSPC working with LAs, they will provide support in several areas, including implementation, networks, workforce strategies and technical support, as well as providing training and quality assurance of fidelity reviews.

Next steps for LAs

Upper Tier LAs (including County, Metropolitan Councils, London Boroughs and Unitary Authorities) and Combined Authorities wishing to participate in IPSPC need to complete the Grant Funding Application which is provided as attachment Appendix B. This should be returned to:

[email protected] by 5pm on 31 August 2022.

Also attached to this letter are:

• IPSPC Grant Funding Guidance
• Appendix A
• Appendix B
• Appendix C
• Appendix D
• Appendix E

To assist Local Authorities, we will be hosting a call providing an overview of the IPSPC scheme and the opportunity for Local Authorities to ask questions. This call will be held via Teams on 20 July. Dial in details can be found in the LA Guidance.

Answers to Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) can be found at Annex D. Should you have any additional queries please send them to our shared inbox: [email protected], or you can raise questions at the All LA Call on 20 July 2022.

Yours faithfully

Hugh Pullinger
Head of Disability and Work Opportunities Division