Onebright, the UK’s largest private outpatient mental healthcare provider, has launched a “Rapid Access” service to provide employees with ad-hoc rapid access to mental health care across the UK and make this care more widely accessible.
Employees can be referred to the service on an ad-hoc basis by their employer and receive an appointment with a clinical expert within days, helping to reduce waiting times for mental health assessments and therapy, and reduce workplace absenteeism.
The service is provided to businesses no matter how big or small and is particularly helpful for organisations with employees who have symptoms of anxiety and depression, work-related stress and addictive behaviours. It is also available without long-term contracts or commitments to minimum spend, increasing accessibility to businesses.
Onebright is also launching a Return on Investment Calculator, to help employers calculate the specific value of offering mental health care to their employees, taking into account the impact of absences, lower productivity, and additional costs such as National Insurance contributions.
While each business, employee and illness is unique, the average cost to a business of an absent employee, as calculated on the ROI tool, comes in at £212 a day. Meaning a business of 100 employees could save over £42,000 over the course of a year by reducing the number of absences by two days each. This only looks at the direct cost of absences, with the real figure, taking into account impact on other employees and workflows, likely to be much higher.
It is estimated the economic costs of mental ill health equates to an eye-watering £110bn a year. This includes the costs to businesses of sickness absence, presenteeism and staff turnover. Reports from Deloitte indicate that for every £1 employers invest in mental health there will be a return on investment of £5, but this will vary on a business to business basis.
Alison Bromley, Head of Partnerships, Onebright said:
“Being able to speak to a clinical expert and access the right evidence-based treatment quickly makes a huge difference to outcomes, and is one of the most important factors when thinking about the effectiveness of therapy and treatments.
“Mental health support within businesses is no longer a nice to have, or solely part of duty of care responsibilities, rather it is a smart business decision that will not only help you to maintain a healthy and active workforce, but it will also directly impact, and improve, productivity, workplace culture and the bottom line.”
