MELBOURNE: The GP fit note system that allows young people to sign off work sick with conditions such as ADHD after brief consultations is “insane”, the government adviser Alan Milburn has said.

Family doctors issued nearly one million sick notes signing people off work with mental health issues last year, according to NHS data. GPs are responsible for deciding if people should be off work. Those given the notes are able to claim sick pay and in some cases qualify for welfare payments.

Milburn, a former Labour cabinet minister who is conducting a review into youth unemployment, said the system was “ruining the life chances of young people” by leaving them “stuck” on benefits.

He made the comments during a trip to the Netherlands where fewer than 5 per cent of young people are not in education, employment or training (Neets) compared with 13.6 per cent in the UK.

He said: “The fit note thing is just bloody insane. You get a fit note. You enter the welfare system. We know that once you enter the welfare system, you get a health and disability benefit.

“The stickiness kicks in. You stand a 50 per cent chance of being on a health and disability benefit if you get it today in 15 years’ time. Everybody talks about the fiscal disaster. Fine, but most importantly, it’s a life chances disaster because we’re ruining the life chances of these young people.”

GPs felt they could not refuse requests from patients. In a survey of 752 GPs, 540 said they had never refused a request to sign somebody off work with mental health issues.

Milburn added: “Just because you’ve got a condition, or even just because you’ve got the diagnosis, shouldn’t mean you aren’t able to work. What is it that we need to do to stop the notion that just because you either self-identify or are identified as having a condition, that automatically means you’re not able to participate in the Labour market.”

Milburn was accompanied on the trip to the Netherlands by Sir Gareth Southgate, the former England football manager who presented a documentary about how young men were falling behind. Southgate warned that young people risked being “written off” from the world of work.

He said: “As a coach, as a parent, you are very conscious of putting a label on a young person because firstly, it can limit what they think’s possible in their life. And secondly, it follows them around.

“I’ve met lots of youngsters with ADHD, with autism, [who] have had the opportunity to have a different way of being schooled and are really thriving. There are definitely so many good qualities for people with those diagnoses and we have to be very careful not to write those people off.”

Milburn warned that the apprenticeship system was failing young people because too many positions were going to older workers. He said the apprenticeship levy, a tax on businesses which is used to fund the system, was “mad” and needed to be “fundamentally reformed”.

Almost half of all apprentices are over the age of 25. “I think it’s got to be fundamentally reformed,” Milburn said. “The apprenticeship system and levy isn’t doing its job to be honest.

“Too many apprenticeships go to older workers for adult in-work training rather than to young people. We’ve reduced the number of youth apprenticeships by 35 per cent in nine years. It’s just mad.”

Southgate said that he “hates” working from home and believed young people benefited from coming into the workplace because they needed mentors who would “look out for them”.

He said: “What I’ve realised a little bit too late in my life is that one of the brilliant things about being in football was I had a coach every day of my life.

“It’s one of the reasons I hate working from home. It’s great at my age but if you’re a youngster you need those mentors, the people that are going to look out for you, when all those complicated things that happen to you as a youngster…and help explain them.”

Southgate warned that the rise in employers’ national insurance contributions and the minimum wage meant that sectors such as retail and hospitality were less likely to take the risk of employing a young person.

“If you speak to people that run bars or restaurants, that’s what they would say is inhibiting them from employing young people,” Southgate added.

“They will see risk in having to take on additional costs and not being certain of the outcomes, and I think again that’s where a mix of changing the mindset of how we look at these things, but also perhaps aided by some changes in policy, could really make a difference.”