The aim is to get people back to work, by GPs referring patients to what the council calls `experienced job advisers'.
But a British Medical Association spokesman warned it was a step too far to ask doctors to police benefits and could lead to a breach in confidentiality.
The `prescription for work' scheme will be tried out in benefit `hotspots' - expected to include districts where more than 38 per cent of adults are on benefits - before being extended across the city. Trainee doctors could also have lessons on helping people get jobs alongside their medical studies.
The moves are part of a government-backed council plan to cut Manchester's huge number of `invisible unemployed'.
There are 38,815 working-age adults in the city being paid incapacity benefit - equivalent to one in six people, and far higher than the national average.
The council aims to cut that figure by 5,100 in just three years.
Town hall chiefs are concerned that Mancunians are missing out on their city's economic boom because of a lack of basic skills and reliance on state allowances.
The council stressed last night that the `prescription for work' would be voluntary for both patients and doctors.
But Dr Kailash Chand, a regional spokesman for the BMA, said: "It would severely damage the doctor-patient relationship and it could lead to a breach in confidentiality.
"People come to surgeries to get better. We don't want them to avoid coming because they are worried there might be someone checking up on their benefits."
Dr Peter Fink, secretary of Manchester's local medical committee, said the project was simply an extension of work that many GPs already did.
He said: "We try to work holistically with our patients and we know that getting back into work can have a huge impact on health both physical and psychiatric.
"I cannot see that having a jobcentre worker sitting in a consulting room in the surgery will damage the doctor/patient relationship. I think that view is outdated.
"Younger doctors are being trained to give lifestyle and work advice, and some of us older GPs are also learning these skills.
"For years we have had posters for training and higher education in our waiting rooms. We try to encourage young people's aspirations."
Sue Murphy, the council's executive member for employment and skills, said: "The city is exploring the potential for joint working with a number of public agencies including GPs to help local residents access the thousands of new jobs being created in Manchester.
"Discussions with Manchester Primary Care Trust are at a very early stage but we hope to be able to offer employment advice from a number of GP surgeries.
"The initiative will be voluntary, for both patients and GPs, and patients will only be referred to employment advisers with the clinical support of the GP. Being in work is good for your health and we want to make sure that all of our residents are aware of the support that is available to them and be able to benefit from the opportunities in the city."
Manchester's employment rate is 63.1 per cent - one of the lowest of any city and well below the national average of 74.1 per cent.
The new jobs masterplan, called the City Strategy, aims to reduce unemployment by 12,500 by 2010, cutting the number on incapacity benefit by 5,100, the number on jobseekers allowance by 3,900, and workless lone parents by 3,500. Tweet
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work gives you self respect ..there are very few folk who are incapable of any sort of work..it may not be the easy option, but many, many 'ill' people do work and are proud of it. If work is actually damaging to your illness then that is a different matter.
What a brilliant idea. Let's hope it works. I was astonished to read that there are 38,815 working-age adults in the city being paid incapacity benefit - equivalent to one in six people. I sometimes why I get up at 6.15 everyday just to pay income tax to keep these idle peole at home.
Would you mind not tarring everyone with the same brush. Not everyone on IB is a 'sponger'. Believe me I wouldn't take the risk of being humbled by some of the people who mouth off about the workshy unless there was a very good reason.
What does 'Believe me I wouldn't take the risk of being humbled by some of the people who mouth off about the workshy unless there was a very good reason' actually mean?
It seems to comprise English words but not in a sequence that I can understand.
there are some people who are clearly unable to work due to their physical or psychological 'incapacity'...and i would not want to swap places. However, the fact remains that many folk on incapacity are able to do some form of work without doing themselves harm..it's just that they have reasons not to.
The main reason seems to be sitting at home watch Tricia or hanging around in the betting shop.
The plain fact is that there are lots and lots of people who do not go to work because they can get by on the benefits they receive from the people who can be bothered goping to work.
It's not just incapacity benefit that should be targeted but unemployment benefit too. There are too many people being paid to sit about by too few who are working to keep them. I would put a time limit on unemployment benefit and after that, the bare minimum to survive. That will force them to get up off their backsides and into work. The welfare state is there to look after those genuine cases who cannot work, not the workshy who sit about watching Sky TV all day and always seem to have enough money for the pub !
Ms D, you and I are of a like mind. This government transferred a lot of people drawing unemployment benefit to incapacity benefit. It made the figures look better.
I would put a very strict time limit on benefit and then stop it altogether.
I agree, put a time limit on the length of time you can claim. It's funny how they can spend every weekend in the pub, have sky, the latest gear etc and hard working people like us have to pay for it! I know of people who claim not just IB or JA but there is the housing on top of that, free council tax, and I'm sure a person I know has her water rates paid for. Another person apparently has some kind of alcohol allowance as he is dependent on it, does anyone know if that is true or not? I dont think it is but it would surprise me. Oh yeah and there was the free facials a few months back.
Fully certificated boozers get £25 a week to help them buy Kestrel. Good innit. What has this once proud country become?
But be fair - £25 doesn't go very far these days.
It is not always the case that people on incapacity benefit are work-shy.
Part of the reason why so many people got onto incapacity benefit is that in previous years, in order to reduce unemployment figures, the government encouraged Jobcentre staff to shift people from JSA to incapacity benefit. This approach is now being reversed.
It will be interesting to see if the Jobcentres in Manchester are more successful and more honest with helping people back to work than they are around here. They claim to give help with retraining and finding work, but they have proved useless in my own case.
I went on incapacity benefit through an aggravated back injury, after nearly 25 years as a Care Worker (I was paying almost as much in osteopath fees as I was earning, and my osteopath said I must give up Care Work). On incapacity benefit I was assigned an ¿experienced job adviser¿ who was to help me get work. She found me no jobs (whenever I phoned, she was still looking for them), and would not pay for any retraining course I chose. The side-effects of the tablets prescribed by my doctor were making me dopey and confused, so I went cold-turkey by stopping them completely. I signed off incapacity benefit and went onto JSA.
Apart from harassing me about why I have not found a job, the Jobcentre has done little to find me work and has also refused to pay for courses I wanted to enroll on. All the jobs I have applied for, and interviews I have had, were from my own job searches. My JSA payments ended after the allotted period, so I signed off and now look for jobs on my own.
Decent jobs are not so easy to find (I don¿t want to stack shelves or pack boxes), especially if you want to change careers after middle-age. I think central and local governments foster the idea of ¿work-shy spongers¿ to deflect criticism of their own inadequate policies which are causing increasing unemployment, in contrast to the ¿spun¿ official statistics.
Ruth, have you thought about becoming an alcoholic to up your benefits?
Ruth - Nobody is making a personal attack on genuine people on incapacity benefit at all and I know of course there are genuine cases as we all do. My gripe is about people who have got to their 30's and 40's and have never worked. I'd love to hear from someone who works in a Job Centre to explain why this is. I know of people I went to school with who don't work, get the bulk of their rent and council tax paid but they have Sky dishes outside of their houses. If it were up to me, I'd make every able bodied person do community work for their unemployment benefit - like painting park benches, litter clearance etc. Perhaps then, they might think about working for a living. Something has to be done within the next few years as there won't be enough young people working to keep the pensioners of tomorrow, let alone those too idle to work. Having said that, it might be an easy life to them but I would never swap places with them. I have too much self respect to let the tax payer keep me. I am fully able to work - so I do.
I was back in Manchester a year ago and I ran into a few lads I attended school with. Out of the five only one had ever worked a couple of years since school and he is now on the dole. They took the pi%& out of me for having worked all my life.They have no work ethic and they refuse to believe me when I said they were living off the charity of others, (taxpayers)and justified their taking benefits by saying its "only the governments money". They tried to embarrass me in front of my 20 yr old son by calling me a mug for working for a living. They are all in their late forties so weening these morons off benefits will be just about impossible, but good luck with anything they try.
Dr Strangelove, have you thought about admitting that you also post on here as einstein (in the 7th dimension, apparently) and possibly simpleton from over the rainbow. say hello to Bean B4 for me ;)
I dont know if any of you have had dealing with these job centre staff but the `prescription for work' would be voluntary for both patients and doctors.phrase is incorrect.If you at present refuse to go for an interview, your benefit can be either cut or suspended.The staff have only one objective to get you off the higher rate of benefit.They do not listen to what you say,they seem to read of a computer screen.I have a young neighbour who is severly handicapped, they called him in for an interview and when his mother Telephoned, she was told if he did not attend his benefit would be cut.After much discussion they insisted home a home visit to assess his work capability.This is on a young man who cannot even feed himself.
Just where are these thousands of new jobs,I wish I knew.I work closely with many job centres and the jobs they offer are either minimum wage or part time vacancies.
It's a pathetic idea, once again we have the daily mail brainwashed halfwits on here condoning this government pushing those with long-term sickness into any nasty little job they can.
Not only will any that are unfortunate enough to be pushed into unsuitable jobs be financially worse off, they will undoubtedly suffer health wise.
Instead of spouting vitriol at those that least deserve it, why not direct it at this government that refuses to retract Thatcher¿s anti-union , anti-worker laws that were passed in the mid 80¿s, but also refuses to allow the EU¿s treaty that gives the workers in Europe far better protection that we have.
Comments from individuals like Ms D make me sick, If you want ¿ enough money to keep the pensioners of tomorrow ¿ ,start by taxing the small minority in this country that have the most.
Don¿t be puppets of this corrupt system.
Andy, Wythenshawe, Socialist Worker party sympathiser on long term benefits. Am I wrong?
Andy, I do not have to justify my comments to you, nor do I understand why you singled out my post which was one amongst many of the same view. Nowhere in my posts did I single out people who were sick or disabled. In fact, I think I mentioned they were the deserving cases of why we have the welfare state. My comments were purely about unemployment benefit and the people who milk the system for their own ends and refuse to work when they are perfectly able. I will never be an apologist for these people and by the way, I'm not a Tory rag reader either !
" My comments were purely about unemployment benefit and the people who milk the system for their own ends and refuse to work"
They are a tiny minority, you should be targetting the elite that screw the system big style with the blessing of this ( and previous ) governments ), this is another B/S idea to target those that can least fight back, but will con the public into thinking that this government has the nations good at heart .
Open your eyes and see through the spin.
moodyblu ... yes I am a socialist ( like the rest of Europe ), but I am in full time employment, believe it or not there are still people that can follow an altruistic ethos.
Ms D: you are wasting your time. Andy will still be in bed.
If you want to have a go at anyone have a go at the government who make it easy for the workshy to take the proverbial out of us workers - if they HAD to work then they would wouldn't they? Fags & booze are not FOC!
Andy,Wythenshawe states"yes I am a socialist ( like the rest of Europe ),
You don't get out much do you Andy?