Incorpore recognise that healthy employees are good for business and we have recently launched Your Wellness Hub, which is a collaboration of some of the key wellness providers in the UK. One of our partners is Westfield Health who strive to support organisations on their health and wellness journey with smarter solutions that help businesses thrive.
Director Richard Holmes has given us an insight into Westfield Health:
- Why was the business created and when?
We were founded in 1919, starting life as the ‘Sheffield Consultative and Advisory Hospitals Council’ and were formed to help the city’s four self-financing hospitals, all of which were desperately short of money after the First World War. In 1921 we launched our ‘Penny in the Pound’ scheme, enabling working people, no matter how humble their earnings, to receive free hospital treatment in return for a weekly contribution of a penny in each pound they earned. With the introduction of the NHS, we evolved to meet the changing health landscape and continued on, with benefits and services that complemented the great work of the NHS. We grew into the award-winning health and wellbeing provider we are today, working with over 400,000 customers and 8,000 companies nationwide. We continue to be staunch supporters of the NHS, and as a not-for-profit company, we strongly believe in giving back, and have donated over £14m to the NHS and medically related charities in the last 20 years.
- What are the benefits of the services?
Employee wellbeing is top of mind for business owners, and is a concern shared by their staff. A recent study we carried out found that 79% of employees think their employers could do more to support their wellbeing. Many companies are waking up to the idea of workplace wellbeing and the benefits it can deliver to their business but this hasn’t yet translated into enough action. Actively supporting the wellbeing of staff helps ensure they make more informed and sustainable wellbeing choices. This in turn can make employees happier, healthier and more productive. Wellbeing benefits and the positive working environment they promote can also help to attract and retain the best talent, ensuring staff feel happy and valued. With the strain on the NHS worse than ever, we believe that preventative measures like wellbeing could help to reduce the strain on services.
- What is the big aim of Westfield Health?
We encourage positive changes in the mental and physical health and wellbeing of our customers, and the wider population across the UK. Together, we can help everyone to live healthier lives through better choices, ongoing support and a more proactive approach to healthcare. Our philosophy is simple. To help everyone lead healthier lives. To enjoy the now – and the future.
- What is your greatest success?
A UK organisation with 3,000 people over 13 sites launched with a health & lifestyle screening to provide a health needs analysis that identified exercise and energy to be the company’s core focus for the next 12 months. A health calendar service was introduced to engage employees in their personal health and wellbeing, together with a series of interventions designed to motivate people to change their behaviours in relation to exercise and energy. At the end of the 12 months a repeat screening programme was delivered to determine what changes in health profiles had taken place and the ROI achieved in terms of behaviour change. For the two focus health areas dramatic improvements were witnessed, with those now at desirable health levels increasing from 25% to 43% for exercise and 51% to 77% for energy levels.
