A community-focused health and work service (HWS)

Science is now confirming what the Greek physician Galen wrote in AD 172: “Employment is
nature's physician, and is essential to human happiness." Recent reviews of the evidence are
documenting how work promotes positive physical, mental, family, and social wellbeing for all
of us, including those with chronic health conditions (Waddell and Burton 2006)—and how
worklessness does the opposite (Waddell and Burton 2006; Strully 2009). Thus, in addition to
supporting entry into employment of people with longstanding disabilities, a major focus of
public policy should be to help working-age people with health problems keep their jobs or
promptly find new ones.