Disabled activists have reacted angrily to “horrific” government plans that could see work coaches being sent into mental health hospitals to help push people in severe mental distress off benefits and into work.

Liz Kendall made the comments in an interview with BBC News ahead of the government’s first budget later this month, and an expected employment white paper.

But DWP policy under the new Labour government has yet again become mired in confusion, after the department refused to clarify her comments.

Most activists and commentators assumed Kendall was suggesting sending Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) work coaches into hospitals – rather than people working for DWP contractors – but the department refused to say if this was what she meant.

But it also emerged today that at least one of the existing projects to support people in mental health hospitals into work do not arrange for work coaches to visit wards, as Kendall appeared to claim in the BBC article.

A recording of the interview does not appear to be available on the BBC.

The BBC initially reported Kendall as saying: “We really need to focus on putting those employment advisers into our mental health services. It is better for people. It is better for the economy. 

“We just have to think in a different way.”

But these comments do not appear in a later version of the story, although they had by then been reported by more than one organisation. 

Kendall also said in her BBC interview that the roll-out of existing projects which already see work coaches sent into mental health hospitals would form part of her drive to cut spending on disability benefits, and that existing schemes had produced “dramatic results”. 

The confusion over Kendall’s comments is just the latest example of DWP’s chaotic and hostile communications policy under the new Labour government.

Earlier this month, DWP refused to clarify comments by the prime minister which suggested that all claimants of long-term sickness benefits would be expected to look for work under Labour’s social security reforms.

And social security and disability minister Stephen Timms criticised the department for “absurdly” refusing to comply with freedom of information requests under the last government, but then weeks later refused to release three documents that link the department with the deaths of benefit claimants.

DWP has also caused confusion and anxiety among disabled people by refusing to state if it will take on any of the last government’s proposals on reform of personal independence payment and the work capability assessment.

Kendall’s comments angered activists who have fought for the last decade to fend off attempts by DWP to encroach on healthcare settings – and vice versa – and have warned of the potentially fatal impact of such policies.

It has been widely assumed this week that Kendall intends to send DWP work coaches into mental health hospitals, although DWP has refused to confirm this.

Activists warned this week of the potential to repeat the harm – including countless deaths of claimants – that followed reforms aimed at cutting spending on disability benefits in the post-2010 austerity years.

But there are also concerns over whether work coaches are equipped to carry out such work safely.

In May, a survey carried out by the Commons work and pensions committee found that two-thirds of DWP staff did not have enough time to deal with safeguarding concerns “carefully” and “correctly”.

When questioned for the survey, 67 per cent of DWP staff who had direct contact with claimants either disagreed or strongly disagreed with the statement: “I have enough time in my day to deal with safeguarding concerns carefully, correctly and in a timely manner.”

The chair of the committee at the time, Labour’s Sir Stephen Timms, is now DWP’s minster for social security and disability.

The grassroots, user-led mental health group Recovery in the Bin (RiTB) said this week that disabled people were being “scapegoated to distract from the rich getting richer while all our services are privatised”.

An RiTB spokesperson said: “This, along with the weight loss injections announcements, indicate that there has been no change in governance on social security despite a change of government. 

“We question the supposed evidential claims being made by ministers; they cite no independently verifiable sources. 

“Secondly the distress this is causing is simply more cruelty, when you are in crisis you need safety and support, not DWP pen pushers evangelising about some mythical cure-all miracle called ‘work’. 

“This is both infantilising and victimising. 

“The DWP remain a threat to our lives and this only gives them more weapons to assault us with.”

Paula Peters, a member of the national steering group of Disabled People Against Cuts, said: “People in mental distress in an in-patient mental health psychiatric unit are in deep distress, in crisis and suicidal in many cases. 

“To place work coaches in a mental health in-patient psychiatric unit is cruel, callous and incredibly dangerous.

“This will cause further worsening of suicidal symptoms and distress and trauma.  

“We urge Labour to rethink this horrific policy and allow people in mental distress and in traumatic crisis to get the support they need. 

“Labour need to be looking at funding for mental health services, crisis support and suicide prevention, as mental health services have been grossly underfunded for decades.”

John McArdle, co-founder of Black Triangle, said the proposals amounted to “a war on people with mental health issues” and were “utterly unethical”. 

He said: “If I was a psychiatrist I would tell the ‘job coaches’ to ‘get the hell out my ward’ and call security to have them escorted off the premises. 

“This is a recipe for real avoidable harm to patients. The last thing they need is to be policed by DWP goons pressuring them into work whilst they are being treated for an acute or chronic psychiatric illness.”

Mikey Erhardt, policy and campaigns officer for Disability Rights UK, said the move was “hugely inappropriate” 

He said: “It is ridiculous to try and turn a hospital, a place of care and support, into a business setting.”

He added: “It’s difficult to see how generic work coaches with limited knowledge of health and disability and the huge barriers disabled people face, ranging from inaccessible workplaces to employer attitudes, will even be able to provide anything of value to a disabled person who would want this sort of support in a hospital setting. 

“A government serious about supporting those who want to into work would focus on the disproportionate barriers to accessing work and staying in work we face. 

“The systemic reasons for this are many, including discrimination in the workplace and societal barriers such as inadequate transport, lack of training and a lack of support for those who become disabled while in work. 

“This sort of support should be offered to prepare for work without any threat to people’s entitlements.”

A DWP spokesperson refused to confirm if Kendall was quoted accurately by the BBC, or to provide any information about the plans, other than sharing a link to a speech she made in July, and saying that further details would be announced in due course.