We have just discovered that the DWP are placing someone in a GP surgery in Derbyshire one day a week, starting in February. At the moment we don't know exactly what their role will be. I am assuming that this is part of the expansion of the Pathways to Work Pilot (Derbyshire being one of the original pilot ares) which referred to the placing of an Empoyment Adviser in every GP surgery. Though I was not aware that this was something that was being implemented just yet.

Has anyone else come across such 'advisers' and if so what have been your experiences of them?

There has been JC+ work going on in a small number of south Devon GP surgeries for a few months now. Still at developmental stage though. Think potential outcomes will depend very much on attitude of GPs and whether they refer patients to visiting JC+ worker. In this area there is also a 'Tomorrow's People' (national charity) service, which has operated on a limited basis for some years, whereby a return-to-work adviser supports people across a number of surgeries and a Jobcentre. Not seen any stats, but feedback for that services seems to suggest that patients prefer such options to the JC+ work focused interview approach. Not had any negative feedback so far from our clients.

Strangely enough, Sara, there has been a DWP (or DSS as it then was) adviser in Derbyshire before, at the Wirksworth surgery in the early/mid nineties. She had no hidden agenda and the whole thing was non-threatening although of course that was before Pathways to Work. In the end though she had so little custom that she stopped coming. Of course, this may have been because the good people of Wirskworth preferred to call on their DCC welfdare rights worker instead.....