Mindfulness & Wellbeing: An Occupational Health Exclusive from Prosperis Ltd

At Prosperis, we have for many years offered our clients a comprehensive Employee Benefits service offering services from Pensions to Medical and Risk solutions. We are constantly reviewing the market to look to offer the most relevant products in the market.

To help our clients, we have been working closely with a leading Occupational Health provider to deliver a solution for the SME market with the aim to provide a consistent level of wellness provision and absence management. We believe this goes much further than traditional insured approaches and is designed to complement those plans by providing support ranging from pre-employment questionnaires, safety critical assessments, mental health support and clinical reporting of absences. By implementing this programme, it is introducing strong focussed support to businesses, which over time will provide a significant return on investment due to reduced absence and less time spent managing issues in the workplace.

Over the past few years, mental health issues have in many cases become the major cause of absence and many insurance-based plans seek to address those and often do provide a good outcome. The NHS does provide mental health services, but these are inconsistent often leading to extended absences. This leaves us with a dilemma, Private Medical Insurance and Income Protection only cover approximately 10% of the working population with very few employers offering this benefit to all employees and the NHS is struggling to cope.

As we provide individual solutions based on a thorough assessment of our clients’ needs, we have for the last few months seen a trend for insurers to promote their wellness services and drift away from their core business of insuring risks. Whilst some of the offerings are certainly attractive, we believe that they only form part of a wellness strategy and in some respects can lead to a false sense of security.

In the recruitment and retention of key staff, Private Medical Insurance and other products are vital, however, it is equally important to consider how the remainder of the workforce is managed. Historically, Occupational Health for the SME sector has been used as a last resort when dealing with an absence with, in many cases poor outcomes and costly Tribunals.

For further information, please contact Prosperis below