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Few employers have changed their employee assistance programmes and health screening offerings despite uncertainty around how these benefits will be taxed. This is according to the Employee Benefits/ HSA Healthcare research 2008 which is released today.

In fact, less than 1% of employers have restricted EAP provision to purely health related advice. And, just 2% of organisations have extended employer paid health screening to all staff according to the findings.

Amanda Wilkinson, Editor of Employee Benefits, says: "It appears that employers are far from rushing to make adjustments to their benefits offering and are waiting for HM Revenue & Customs to make final decisions on the tax treatment of employee assistance programmes that include financial and legal advice, and health screening which is funded for only some employees in the workplace."

Glenn Rhodes from Healthplan provider HSA, which sponsored the research, comments: "EAPs have particularly grown in popularity over the past few years. In fact, the Employee Benefits survey in 2002 found that just 23% of employees offered this as a core benefit compared to 54% in 2008. It is therefore hardly surprising that companies are reluctant to compromise on how they offer it to employees. Especially as these simple and affordable benefits can be offered as part of a wider Healthplan proposition to help attract and retain staff."

The annual benchmark survey was carried out in April among 502 readers of Employee Benefits magazine in the UK. For further information visit www.employeebenefits.co.uk. HSA Healthplans enable employees to access affordable healthcare, whether for check-ups, treatment or emergencies.

Notes to Editor

About Employee Benefits Magazine

• For more information contact: Amanda Wilkinson, Editor of Employee Benefits on 020 7943 8060.
• Please note: all statistics quoted are based on the number of respondents who are responsible for, or influence, their organisation's healthcare strategy (368 respondents).  

About HSA

• HSA is a trading division of Simplyhealth Access and is a provider of Healthplans including Health Cash Plans, Dental Plans and Private Medical Insurance Part of the Simplyhealth Group, Simplyhealth.
• Access is authorised and regulated by the Financial Services Authority As of December 2007, HSA had 872,909 customers providing cover for some 1.6 million people.

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