BioPsychoSocial back in Disability Benefits Policy - Keep Britain Working Report

Lou B Lou

Lou B Lou

Senior Member (Voting Rights)
UK Government published the 'Keep Britain Working' Report on Thursday 5th November 2025. With lurid Headlines everywhere quoting wildly irresponsible scare figures on how much sick/disabled people are costing the UK and how sick/disabled people are threatening the future of the country.

The Report's lead reviewer is Sir Charlie Mayfield, former boss of John Lewis Partnerships (which includes the low pay supermarket Waitrose) and he was Chairman of the UK Commission for Employment and Skills until its closure in March 2017.


Disturbingly the Lead Report Reviewer Charlie Mayfield, when interviewed, rattled off a horribly garbled overview of the BiopsychoSocial Model, which he obviously has only a very sketchy idea of, failed to even pronounce the word properly and gives up, calling it the BioPsychological Model'. Then he confidently announces that -
"If you're disabled you're Not Ill. You have a disability"

Charlie Mayfield has clearly Been Briefed on the BioPsychoSocial Model and doesn't himself understand it at all, or understand the other Models of Disability he waffles on about.
It's frankly frightening that a man with so little knowledge of anything relating to sickness/disability has been given a lead role at this time of the UK government's mania for cutting disability benefits, removing access to disability benefits, all the while Ministers and Media churn out what is often now described as hate-inciting rhetoric against sick/disabled citizens


BBC
www.bbc.co.uk

Britain sliding 'into economic crisis' over £85bn sickness bill, ex-John Lewis boss warns

The number of people who are out of work for health reasons has grown by 800,000 since 2019.
www.bbc.co.uk www.bbc.co.uk
'The number of sick and disabled people out of work is putting the UK at risk of an "economic inactivity crisis" that threatens the country's prosperity, according to a new report.
There were 800,000 more people out of work now than in 2019 due to health conditions, costing employers £85bn a year, according to the review by former John Lewis boss Sir Charlie Mayfield.
The problem could worsen without intervention, but Sir Charlie, who will lead a taskforce aimed at helping people return to work, said this was "not inevitable".



Charlie Mayfield interviewed on Good Morning Britain TV on 5th November 2025. ​

'Review Finds the UK Is Sliding into an Avoidable Workplace Sickness Crisis'​




Charlie Mayfield from 8.54 minutes on the GMB video:

“There are various models for how you deal with disability. There's a Social Model, which I think isa very good one. Basically it's about removing social barriers that mean that disabled people find it hard to get into work.

“There's a Medical Model – that's basically treating them as a medical condition.
If you're disabled you're Not Ill, you have a disability

“There's also a thing called Biopsych ..od ..pso .. pso .. pslo … pso … “

(He sighs in frustration at his inability to even pronounce the name ofthe BPS model)

“… Biopsychological Model. And that sort of combines all of these elements, it takes the behavioral aspects andthe social aspects and says how do you go about creating better arrangements so people can really thrive in work.

"And I think what we have to look at particularly is the Social Model and also the broader consideration of the behavioural aspect, so that we can create more opportunities and keep people in work.@

“I have met some extraordinary people who are amazingly resilient and frankly deserve to be in work. And one of the things we've calledout in the review is when you look at some groups, some people who are disabled are facing effectively structural exclusion from the workplace and I would agree with you that is a big problem”.
 
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'Blaming the victim, all over again: Waddell and Aylward’s biopsychosocial (BPS) model of disability'​

Tom Shakespeare Nicholas Watson, and Ola Abu Alghaib
May 2016



'The biopsychosocial model (BPS) of mental distress, originally conceived by American psychiatrist George Engel in the 1970s and commonly used in psychiatry and psychology, has been adapted by Gordon Waddell and Mansel Aylward to form the theoretical basis for current UK government thinking on disability. Most importantly, the Waddell and Aylward version of the BPS has played a key role as the government has sought to reform spending on out-of-work disability benefits. This article critiques Waddell and Aylward’s model, examining its origins, its claims and the evidence it employs. We argue that its potential for genuine interdisciplinary cooperation and the holistic and humanistic benefits for disabled people as envisaged by Engel are not now, if they ever have been, fully realised. Any potential benefit it may have offered has been eclipsed by its role in Coalition/Conservative government social welfare policies that have blamed the victim and justified restriction of entitlements.'

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Andy

Thread 'Blaming the victim, all over again: Waddell and Aylward’s biopsychosocial (BPS) model of disability, 2016, Shakespeare et al'

Blaming the victim, all over again: Waddell and Aylward’s biopsychosocial (BPS) model of disability, 2016, Shakespeare et al

Abstract
The biopsychosocial model (BPS) of mental distress, originally conceived by American psychiatrist George Engel in the 1970s and commonly used in psychiatry and psychology, has been adapted by Gordon Waddell and Mansel Aylward to form the theoretical basis for current UK government thinking on disability. Most importantly, the Waddell and Aylward version of the BPS has played a key role as the government has sought to reform...
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Charlie Mayfield appears to presume to redefine disability in that Good Morning Britain interview -
He redefines Disability as 'Not Ill'.

That would exclude all people with disabling diseases as 'Not Disabled', which would include Cerebral Palsy, Parkinsons, MND, MS, ME, etc and most especially Long Covid. Seeing as the KBW Report concentrates on increased illness figures since 2019.


In the UK Disability is defined in Law by the Equality Act 2010, as

'A physical or mental impairment that has a substantial and long-term adverse effect on their ability to carry out normal day-to-day activities. "Substantial" means more than minor or trivial, and "long-term" means it has lasted or is expected to last for at least 12 months.'
https://www.gov.uk/definition-of-disability-under-equality-act-2010


'How the Equality Act 2010 defines disability, and what law changes mean for the public, businesses, and the public and voluntary sectors.'
www.gov.uk

Equality Act 2010: how it might affect you

How the Equality Act 2010 defines disability, and what law changes mean for the public, businesses, and the public and voluntary sectors.
www.gov.uk www.gov.uk

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Lou B Lou said:
Charlie Mayfield appears to presume to redefine disability in that Good Morning Britain interview -
He redefines Disability as 'Not Ill'.

That would exclude all people with disabling diseases as 'Not Disabled', which would include Cerebral Palsy, Parkinsons, MND, MS, ME, etc and most especially Long Covid. Seeing as the KBW Report concentrates on increased illness figures since 2019.


In the UK Disability is defined in Law by the Equality Act 2010, as

'A physical or mental impairment that has a substantial and long-term adverse effect on their ability to carry out normal day-to-day activities. "Substantial" means more than minor or trivial, and "long-term" means it has lasted or is expected to last for at least 12 months.'
https://www.gov.uk/definition-of-disability-under-equality-act-2010


'How the Equality Act 2010 defines disability, and what law changes mean for the public, businesses, and the public and voluntary sectors.'
www.gov.uk

Equality Act 2010: how it might affect you

How the Equality Act 2010 defines disability, and what law changes mean for the public, businesses, and the public and voluntary sectors.
www.gov.uk www.gov.uk

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To be devils advocate, he was describing the medical model and telling people (possibly wrongly) that the medicine treats the disability or something. I think what he was trying to describe was a very basic type of physical disability I.e. if you’ve no legs then you get a wheelchair=problem solved! Thanks Dr!

I mean, we all know that’s bunkum. I wouldn’t trust Charlie to explain models to me given he can’t even say the name of them, what else is he getting wrong. I bet SMC were sending him an email before his OB finished!
 
MrMagoo said:
To be devils advocate, he was describing the medical model and telling people (possibly wrongly) that the medicine treats the disability or something. I think what he was trying to describe was a very basic type of physical disability I.e. if you’ve no legs then you get a wheelchair=problem solved! Thanks Dr!

I mean, we all know that’s bunkum. I wouldn’t trust Charlie to explain models to me given he can’t even say the name of them, what else is he getting wrong. I bet SMC were sending him an email before his OB finished!
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I made a transcript of Charlie Mayfields statements in the Good Morning Britain interview. Further up the thread.

True Charlie Mayfield doesn't understand any of the 3 models, Medical Model, Social Model, BioPsychoSocial Model ....

But his Report is significantly about how many people are not working due to ill health and sickness/disability, according to government figures (figures which are wildly misquoted by Ministers and the Media, figures that are elsewhere robustly challenged by both the Office of Budget Responsibility and The Office of Statistics Regulation - more on those later when I am up to posting more) ....

By seizing on the Social Model and the BPS Model, and with his focus on "behavior", his praises for "resilience" Mayfield simply squeezes out all the people disabled by sickness, for whom no amount of employer adaptations or enabling will enable them to work. He is worryingly dismissive of any idea that sickness prevents anyone from working. Dismissive of sick people.



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Incredibly dangerous as if disabilty has ever or will ever be that simple, ignorance cost lives, not just us and the other conditions pointed out but learning disabilties also regularly come with a whole host of medical issues and wide range of severaties, intertwined with their diagnosis, not all are even given a named condition, yet all classed as diabled, the issue of not technically being under the disease banner hasn't been issue until now, erasing groups of people even just in ridiculous interviews has consequences, disgusted doesn't even cover it
 
BBC said:
The problem could worsen without intervention, but Sir Charlie, who will lead a taskforce aimed at helping people return to work, said this was "not inevitable".
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The problem will worsen from the intervention, as the intervention has nothing to do with the actual problem, more than it will from no intervention. Thus somehow justifying the intervention. Because outcomes are entirely irrelevant to this ideology, it's about control and imposing their will onto people they see as dregs.

But they sure are making it clear that the modern mission of health care is about serving the rich, keeping the masses busy and unhappy, for which they will provide more fake solutions that have no chance of working, creating an even greater need for solutions, all of which will be more biopsychosocial.

The good thing about Lysenkoism is that it was stopped pretty quickly. That's the only good thing about it. There is no such good thing to say about this wretched ideology. It just keeps failing and failing and reaping awards and praise for it. At this point it's very hard to argue that the failure is not the actual goal.
 
It’s the spin which is galling “disabled people want to work and are being shut out” well that will be true for some. As I cited earlier, the biggest offender regarding Disability Discrimination EmploymentTribunal cases is ….the DWP. So maybe Charlie can have a word with them for starters…
 
Kitty said:
It never seems to occur to any of them to wonder why there are so many people with disabling illnesses. You'd think that'd be the first question.

Unless of course it might to turn out to be inconvenient.
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There might be a bit of an issue with the NHS and/or Social Care not doing what you’d expect, hence lots of “removing barriers to work” whilst glossing over the “how am I supposed to function, eat, wash and dress” part.
 
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