DWP delays Health and Work Service launch until December

The launch of the new Health and Work Service (HWS) has been delayed until December.

The scheme aims to offer advice for people off work due to sickness for more than four weeks to help them get back to work more quickly as well as a tax free amount of up to £500 where employers fund medical treatments.

Paul Avis, Marketing Director of Canada Life Group Insurance, said: “The government has funded the health and work service through the removal of the percentage threshold scheme from April 2014 and has now announced that rather than being launched in October on a pilot basis, it will now be piloted in December with a full roll out possibly as late as May 2015.”