Counselling and advice services
How to use this service
Call 0330 102 5331 at any time, to chat to a qualified counsellor or advisor.
This ‘in the moment’ telephone support is designed to help you when you need help the most. The counsellor will help you address the problem confidentially and talk through your options and agree next steps with you - you never have to face a crisis alone.
If you’re deaf or hard of hearing; we have options available to you including a Minicom service. Please email our team of counselling coordinators for support.
Counselling and advice services FAQs
Who provides this service?
Simplyhealth have partnered with Health Assured, who are the leading Employee Assistance Programme (EAP) provider in the UK dealing with many of the UK’s leading organisations across private, public, and non-profit sectors. They have vast experience and a proven track record in delivering mental health and wellbeing advice and counselling support.
Counsellors who work for Health Assured hold a qualification in counselling or psychotherapy, and a membership with accreditation eligibility to the BACP (British Association of Counselling and Psychotherapy) or equivalent.
How do I access the counselling and advice services?
You, and anyone named on the plan over the age of 16, can use the Counselling and Advice Service to speak to a fully qualified counsellor or psychotherapist 24/7, 365 days a year.
To access this service, a phone number can be accessed through your online portal, via myWellbeing. Under 'Advice and Counselling', you will then view the contact details for this service. A qualified counsellor or legal advisor will answer your call.
If you’ve called before, they’ll ask you some security questions. These are simple – your date of birth or postcode. Data security is important, so you must answer these correctly to continue.
They’ll ask what your call relates to. This is to make sure you get the right support, as quickly as possible. If a counsellor answers, and you need legal information, they will transfer you to an advisor and vice versa. In the unlikely event that the appropriate counsellor or advisor is unavailable, they’ll arrange a call-back at the best time for you.
What can this service help me with?
Health Assured provide both emotional support and practical guidance. The counsellors on the helpline will triage and provide early interventions. Individuals can take advantage of the helpline to work through their current situation.
This service can provide you with advice and support on a range of issues. These could be financial (helping with budgeting, helping address debt issues, managing finances), relationship related (issues with family, problems with relationships at work), career (challenges with workplace scenarios), as well as issues of anxiety, stress and depression.
If an individual has any practical concerns, Health Assured’s legal advisors can help. They will provide information and guidance on issues such as:
- Writing a will
- Divorce procedures
- Probate costs
- Property and partnership rings
- Tenancy and housing concerns
- Boundary disputes
- Motoring issues
- Immigration information
What is not covered under this service?
This service is designed to support in line with the short-term solution focussed model that Health Assured adopts, which includes in-the-moment support via the 24/7/365 confidential telephone helpline.
The service is not designed to provide long-term support or act as an alternative to emergency services. If longer-term support is required, then Health Assured can signpost you to the best places and provide in-the-moment support whilst you seek alternative support.
Diagnosis of a medical condition or prescription of treatments is not covered under this service.
Why am I limited on the number of sessions of structured therapy?
Health Assured deliver short-term solution focussed support, in line with up to 6 sessions of structured support, per issue, per year.
A short assessment will be completed prior to any structured therapy, to ensure that the short-term solution-focused counselling is clinically safe and appropriate for you.
What if I want to continue seeing my counsellor privately after my structured therapy sessions are complete?
In line with the principles of Beneficence and Non-maleficence set out in the BACP ethical framework, Health Assured ask that individuals who have accessed counselling through the EAP and wish to continue privately with an affiliate counsellor, paying for this themselves, that they wait for three months before commencing further therapy. This protects the individual and counsellor from emotional and financial issues relating to a potentially inappropriate referral and the employer involved for the same reason.
In these instances, Health Assured will ensure that clients are not left unsupported and will explore other forms of support which the client may be able to access until further counselling can be offered. If the individual is happy for Health Assured to contact them to discuss this further, it can be arranged.
All counsellors sign a covenant which prohibits them from continuing with EAP clients in a private capacity without at least three months passing. As such if they breach this covenant there are potentially serious consequences for the working relationship between counsellor and EAP, which in turn affects Health Assured’s ability to support employees who have been referred to the counsellor in question.