Mental health concerns have been high on the agenda of late, from adviser corporate client discussions to Association of British Insurers conferences and Labour leader Ed Miliband's speeches. How significant is this issue for employers and are insurer employee benefits packages doing enough to tackle the problem?
Dr Mark Winwood, clinical director of psychological health, Axa PPP healthcare
The latest Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development absence survey cites stress, anxiety and depression as the leading causes of long term sickness absence.
They accounted for 13.3m lost working days in 2011 up from 11.8m in 2010, according to the latest ONS Labour Force Survey. The Centre for Mental Health reported £8.4bn cost for sickness absence plus £15.1bn in impaired productivity of employees working when ill and £2.4bn in labour turnover each year.
While the best benefits packages do help employers to manage mental health, the limited influence of insurers should be acknowledged. Insurers can highlight the importance of building a positive workplace where line managers are coached to support employees and, if they recognise early signs of psychological problems, steer them to help and support.
Early access to appropriate clinical assessment and referral is critical for successful treatment. Employee assistance programmes can make a real difference here and insurers should work closely with providers to ensure employees secure the right care for an early recovery and back to work.
The old medical insurance model, where GPs referred directly to a psychiatrist is often inappropriate for patients with anxiety and mild to moderate depression.
But, whatever employers do to tackle mental illness, it should be developed and delivered with a commitment to tackling the still too prevalent problem of stigmatisation.
Stephen Hackett, head of employee benefits, Bluefin Group
We are quite proactive on this issue. Mental health is one of those areas that we have seen a clear increase in claims.
We have been talking about better integration so products and services are aligned better to be used as easily as possible. It is very difficult to do because clients have varying levels of resources – not everybody has occupational health.
Providers do offer rehabilitation services and support with cover but I think more can be done to join it all up. The basics are there and done very well but usage of EAPs is low. A criticism would be to make sure EAPs and the product work together better.
Just because the EAP and product are provided by the same insurer does not always mean they work together effectively.
We are also strongly advocating early intervention but that is very hard to get through line managers.
Once we have that we can then get those integrated services – including employee assistance programmes and group cover schemes – to deliver real value. It is all about early intervention.
There is a stigma among some clients in talking about mental health issues. Some are very positive, keen and engaged while others do not have that internal support to tackle it and do not necessarily want to confront it.
But even if it is difficult to bring it up we keep banging the drum because mental health issues are becoming a very big problem.
