In pursuit of 'therapeutic optimism'

Matt Muijen, director of the Sainsbury Centre for Mental Health, says it could be a good vehicle to get people with relatively minor mental illness back into work, providing them with much-needed stability and confidence.

'We are not talking about highly psychotic individuals. We are talking about people with some level of disability who have been out of the job market for some time,' he says.

'The challenge is benefits - these people will be very reluctant to lose their disability benefits.'

He emphasises that people with experience of mental illness could also bring useful qualities to some NHS jobs, such as outreach working with mentally ill people. This kind of arrangement, he says, would be 'win- win'.

Edward Peck, director of the centre for mental health services development at King's College, London, agrees there may be clinical benefits in getting mentally ill people into work.

But he warns that taboos against this may be strong among private sector employers. 'What is needed,' he says, 'is therapeutic optimism'.