Bupa, the UK’s leading health and care company, is working with British Airways to reduce sickness absence among the airline’s 38,000 UK employees through BA’s Early Active Rehabilitation service.
EAR was developed by BA to provide absent employees with rapid access to private medical treatment, enabling them to recover their health and return to work more quickly than the alternative of waiting for treatment on the NHS.
A 20-strong team of clinical and private health experts from Bupa Wellness has been awarded the contract to work with BA’s in-house Occupational Health Service to identify cases where employees, off work through injury or illness, could benefit from the scheme.
Bupa’s team is responsible for looking at approximately 1500 cases, referred by BA each year, to evaluate if there is a clear benefit to the individual and a cost benefit to BA for the employee to be placed on the airline’s EAR scheme.
Important criteria for consideration include the length the employee would have to wait for treatment on the NHS and the severity of their condition.
For every case, Bupa’s experts work with the NHS to clarify the waiting period for the treatment required and talk to employees to fully understand their condition.
Mary Rafferty, who heads up the Bupa Wellness team working with BA, said:
“This service means that BA employees can get back to health in less than half the time. For example an employee needing physiotherapy or counselling could receive treatment within two days, rather than waiting 13 weeks. Similarly, surgery could be provided within seven days, where as a maximum wait on the NHS is 18 weeks.”
Judy Cook, General Manager Health Services Delivery at BA said:
“We designed EAR to meet BA’s needs and are delighted that Bupa Wellness was awarded the contract to deliver the services. This partnership is a win-win situation for BA and our employees.”
Bupa is the UK’s leading provider of workplace health services and works with over 80 per cent of FTSE 100 companies.
