FAQs

Health Assured Ltd ensures that all counsellors are accredited by the British Association of Counsellors and Psychotherapists  (BACP) and are trained to Diploma in Counselling (or equivalent) as a minimum qualification. All employed counsellors have at least two years post-qualifying clinically supervised, counselling experience.

All counsellors providing the service are full members of the BACP and abide by the BACP Ethical Framework for Good Practice in Counselling and Psychotherapy.

How do you ensure that your counsellors provide a safe environment for clients?

In addition to the full time employees referred to above Health Assured retains a national network of over 1100 associate counsellors, Chartered counselling psychologists and Chartered clinical psychologists to provide face to face counselling and therapy.  It is a requirement that Associate counsellors are required to have membership of BACP, BPS, BAPCP or other recognised professional body and are bound by their ethical codes of practice.

Associate counsellors are also required to have established private practices. Their premises are evaluated, to ensure their suitability.

All associate counsellors and psychologists providing services under the Programme are required to provide evidence of their professional indemnity insurance and qualifications annually, as well as evidence of CRB checks, or willingness to have one carried out.

The network also includes specialist trauma counsellors and mediators. Counsellors providing this service also have a minimum qualification at Diploma level or equivalent and must not have less than two years post-qualification experience of supervised counselling.

What sort of training programme or CPD process do you have to ensure that your on-line and face to face counsellors are up to date and operating within ethical and legal limitations?

The service, has Investor in People accreditation as well as ISO 9001. A comprehensive framework for personal development and assessment therefore exists.

Professional standards are maintained through regular and ongoing support and development programmes, provided for staff on a planned and systematic basis. Mandatory training programmes are run using in-house resources, utilising specialist input, and through appropriate, external courses and seminars. Counsellors are encouraged to attend regular case conferences at which the application of theory to practice is assessed and monitored.

Staff are encouraged to attend conferences and seminars held by the various professional bodies. Counsellors and Psychologists providing services under the EAP Programme have training in, and a robust understanding of all issues, whether of a private or work related nature and are fully trained and practised in mental health issues, alcohol and drug problems and EAP practice.

What process do you have in place to ensure that all of your counsellors are provided with supervision?

The Dedicated Counselling Services Manager ensures that counsellors also have mandatory one-to-one clinical supervision bi-monthly and have access to ad-hoc clinical supervision 24-hours a day, 7 days a week.

Clinical supervision of counsellors providing services under the Programme is available from trained supervisors 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.

BACP accredited supervisors, working to the EAP Association standards, carry out supervision.  Supervisors have extensive relevant experience in the implementation and management of counselling schemes in the workplace.  In addition to such supervision each in-house counsellor is subject to formal clinical supervision and case discussion.  Staff are subject to formal appraisal at least twice a year, plus ongoing quality monitoring.

In addition to ongoing clinical supervision all cases are monitored and review by allocated case managers and case notes and reports reviewed to ensure appropriateness of the counselling process and attainment of required outcomes.

This review is carried out in conjunction with a review of the clients counselling feedback form.

How will the new income tax exemption for welfare counselling impact on the service you would be able to provide us. We are particularly interested in how you would meet our needs, regarding dependents access and legal advice.

The new tax exemption guidelines from the HMRC are an update to pre-existing guidelines. The most significant change relates to the provision of the service to dependants of employees.  The guidelines are clear that in order to remain tax exempt, it must focus on supporting the emotional wellbeing of employees only, therefore their dependants are no longer entitled to access any of the services within an EAP, other than for couple counselling along with the employee.  However, in reality the utilisation of  dependants constitute a very small percentage of usage across a typical EAP portfolio, and as such it is not anticipated that this will cause too much disruption.

Professional discretion is applied to those cases where it is clear that the dependant's problems are heavily impacting on the performance and ability of the employee to function well at work.

Should a client choose to continue providing the service to all dependants, they can do so but they will need to pay tax (PSA) on the whole service cost and make suitable arrangements through their local tax office; we will be happy to set the distinction up on our systems to allow dependants access.

Regarding the legal services, also mentioned within the guidelines, it is envisaged that there will be no difference in the manner in which these professional services are delivered, as broad information has always been provided (as opposed to advice), with the aim of supporting the emotional wellbeing of the employee, by addressing their legal/financial concerns in a pragmatic manner so that they are confident in ultimately resolving their issues themselves. 

Please provide us with examples of how you would provide us with statistical data regarding the services you have provided to our employees

It is our fundamental belief that Management Information, and the quality of data interpretation is a vital element of any EAP, facilitating informed management decisions based on good data as well as a reflection of the potential return on investment.

Reports will be provided quarterly and will include data, including the age and gender of callers, the times of calls, (which we often summarise as day/night), whether the callers were employees or family members, whether they were accessing the service for the first time or were repeat callers and the time spent by those callers discussing their presenting problems.

We are about to launch a Wellbeing at Work procedure, which will include mental well being. How do you think you organisation will be able to help the Service in implementing this procedure?

Health Assured is always happy to support wellbeing initiatives within its client base, working proactively to support other key stakeholders within the organisation to ensure collaboration i.e. Occupational Health, Health & Safety, Human Resources, employee relations and unions etc. 

This could include the recognition of more formal referral procedures into programmes/support networks, or the creation of triggers against absence periods and health awareness initiatives campaigns for example.