More than 2.8 million British workers are on long-term sickness benefits, citing an inability to work due to health ailments allegedly associated with the Covid pandemic, according to a new NHS report. This is up from 700,000 people who were receiving the same benefits prior to the pandemic, and it is costing taxpayers a fortune.

By the conclusion of this year's parliament, the cost of sickness benefits is expected to reach £64 billion, up from the £30 billion pre-pandemic, as reported by The Times.

The long-term health sickness has apparently affected students the hardest, with NHS Confederation and Boston Consulting Group reporting that tens of thousands of students are going directly from university to remain at home due to long-term illness.

Liz Kendall, the work and pensions secretary, explained the economic concerns over the matter saying, "spiraling inactivity is the greatest employment challenge for a generation." She said it's imperative to reverse the current trajectory or suffer economic consequences.

The research indicated that reversing even a portion of the impact would save taxpayers £19.5 billion per year by the end of the decade by reducing welfare spending and increasing tax receipts. The benefit to the overall economy would be significantly greater, at £62.6 billion. 

Students are now among the main contributors to long-term illness, according to a BGC analysis of people's pathways into it. The number of people who transitioned straight from being economically inactive due to studying to being inactive due to long-term illness increased to 63,392 in 2021-2022, up from 36,866 in 2019-20. After deducting those going the other way, students increased net inactivity by 42,300, compared to 12,700 in 2019-20, per the report.

The rate had varied before the pandemic, but the data indicates a 24 percent increase since 2014 and an average yearly net increase of 5.5 percent, with an increasing number of students entering long-term illness with the number of students transitioning from illness to study remaining relatively stable.

Raoul Ruparel, who wrote the report, said that mental health issues are the main factor contributing to students aged 16-24 who are out of the workforce due to long-term sickness.

"The UK faces a series of enormous health challenges as seen in the sharp rise in the number of people out of the workforce due to long-term sickness. The spike has defied European trends and requires both additional investment in the NHS alongside coordinated and sustained action across government," Matthew Taylor, head of the NHS Confederation, said.