Since 2010 the test, known as the Work Capability Assessment (WCA), has been used to assess the eligibility of claimants of the main out of work disability benefit, in a bid to get more people back into the workplace and help curb the government's rising welfare bill.
But areas with the greatest use of the WCA to assess existing claimants have seen the sharpest rises in reported suicides, mental health issues, and antidepressant prescribing, the findings show, prompting the researchers to question the wisdom of introducing this policy.
This adds up to a total of 590 additional suicides, 279,000 extra cases of mental ill health and 725,000 more prescriptions for antidepressants across the country as a whole that were associated with the reassessment policy between 2010 and 2013..