Britain is becoming the sick man of leading developed nations when it comes to rates of claims health and disability-related benefits, a leading economic think-tank has found.

According to the Institute of Fiscal Studies (IFS) data, between 2010 and 2023, the share of the population claiming disability benefit in the UK has almost doubled, and rates for those claiming incapacity benefit are also at the highest levels in a decade.

In contrast rates of similar claims in Sweden, Denmark, Canada, Australia and the USA have all fallen when measured against the same time scale.

Only France and Norway, where national spending on welfare is comparably higher than the UK, there have also been rises in claims, but the change in levels in Britain is much higher.

According to the Telegraph, the share of working age population receiving disability and incapacity benefit in the UK rose by more than a quarter between 2019 and 2023.

IFS researcher Tom Waters told the newspaper a perfect storm of a cost-of-living spike following the pandemic may have made more people seek to claim from the state to support themselves financially.

Mr Waters said: "The share of the UK's national income that goes on health-related benefis for working-age people is not unusual compared to other well-off countries.

"What is unusual is the recent growth: spending on these benefits increased from £37billion just before the pandemic to £56billion now."

Mr Waters made his comments as the Chancellor Rachel Reeves announced a £1billion programme to "provide guaranteed, personalised employment support" in a bid to get more people off benefits and back into work.

But the National Audit Office (NAO) has warned more than half of job centres in Britain scaled back on support to benefit claimants amid a shortfall of more than 2,000 work coaches.

The NAO report, published on Monday, found around 2,100 fewer work coaches were employed on average by the department than the estimated need between April and September last year.

The Joseph Rowntree Foundation said the shortfall "undermines the Government's promise to support disabled people into work, which it used to justify the biggest cuts to disability benefits in recent memory".

Its senior policy adviser, Iain Porter, said: "Moving away from box-ticking and compliance towards personalised, tailored support for people with long-term ill health or disability requires dedicated work coaches to build relationships of mutual trust and respect.

"But more than half of job centres reduced their support for people looking for work at the end of last year because of rising caseloads. The Government must urgently explain how it plans to support disabled people into work while these work coach shortages remain."