GP waiting times and impact on employers

People assume private medical insurance, either bought as a consumer or through a workplace scheme, is primarily for the big things – consultant appointments, diagnosis and operations while also helping to cut the waiting times and improve the overall experience. But in reality, it offers so much more.

The NHS is in crisis – the news reminds us of this on a weekly basis. We’ve all seen the news about GP waiting times and we’ve all struggled to get an appointment, contributing to the 8am deluge of phone calls of people desperate to get in front of their GP – today, not in eight weeks’ time.

And for whatever reason, we’re still also fighting a postcode lottery with wildly different waiting times for appointments and treatment depending on where you are in the country. One constant, however, is the fact that no matter where you live, the days when you could call your GP after the school run and have an appointment before the end of the day are long gone. And that has an impact on the amount of sick leave taken.

Pre-pandemic, data from the Office for National Statistics show that on average UK workers took between 4.2-4.7 days sick a year. That figure was fairly stable for around a decade, and while Covid impacted years are hard to compare due to Government support, there was a marked spike in 2022 and 2023 with 5.7 and 4.9 days taken by each worker respectively.

Figures for 2024 are back around the average of 4.4, but while this is a promising ‘return to normal’ for a business with for example ten staff, that still equates to 44 days of lost productivity… a month and a half of paying for employees to be ill every year.

That’s where private healthcare could make a difference and should be seen as an investment in your business. Private healthcare is so much more than consultants, shorter waiting times and nicer hospitals.

It can give your employees access to a GP 24/7 with prescriptions sent via email in a couple of hours. How much of a difference would that make to your business – and your bottom line? Instead of an employee calling in sick and trying to secure an emergency GP appointment by the end of the week, they could talk to a GP immediately and have a prescription for the right medication to get them on the mend a few hours later.

Instead of losing days waiting for the right treatment, it could start as soon as the same day and that average of 4.4 days sick leave could conceivably be cut in half. And private healthcare doesn’t have to be as expensive as you think – tailored plans can be built around your needs and to accommodate the team you have in your business.

So instead of bemoaning the loss of productivity, give me a call and find out how you could improve the health and wellbeing of your team and your business.