Employers look to expand health benefits despite access gap

Almost half of UK employers plan to expand workplace healthcare benefits this year, despite a significant gap between employer and employee perceptions of how easy existing services are to access, according to research from Healix Health.

The healthcare trust and corporate health services provider found that 49% of employers intend to expand their workplace healthcare benefits in 2026, while one in ten employees have not tried to use the benefits already available to them.

The findings, published in Healix Health’s Hidden Workplace Healthcare Gap Report, show that 91% of employers believe their healthcare benefits are easy for employees to access, compared with 69% of employees who said they had found them easy to use.

The disparity was greater at organisations employing between 2,000 and 6,000 people, where 90% of employers said benefits were easy to access, compared with 63% of employees.

Employers were also more positive about the ability of their healthcare provision to meet workforce needs.

Some 98% said they were confident employees could access timely healthcare when required, compared with 87% of employees, while 96% of employers said their benefits met employee needs, against 83% of employees.

The research also identified differences in perceptions of the barriers preventing employees from using workplace healthcare.

Confidentiality concerns were cited by 29% of employers as a major barrier to access, compared with 14% of employees.

Employees were more likely to report practical obstacles. Lack of available appointments, time-consuming processes and long waiting times were each cited by 19% of respondents.

Younger workers appeared to face greater difficulties accessing services. More than a quarter (26%) of employees aged 18 to 24 said they did not know how to access their workplace healthcare benefits, compared with 10% of employees aged over 55.

Just 6% of 18 to 24-year-olds said they had experienced no barriers to accessing benefits, compared with 29% of employees overall.

Among the same age group, 28% said waiting times were too long and 28% said appointments or support were unavailable when they needed them. This compared with 19% of employees overall for both measures.

Ian Talbot, CEO of Healix Health, said: ‘Employers are putting serious money into workplace healthcare, but if their people can’t access it or don’t even know it’s there, a lot of that money is effectively going to waste.

‘The worrying part is that our research suggests many employers think access is working better than their employees do. That means problems can go unnoticed and, when they do emerge, employers may not always be clear on what’s actually stopping people from using the support available.

‘With employers being asked to do more to keep people healthy and in work, and new best practice guidance on the way, the focus has to be on how a scheme actually works from an employee’s point of view, from how easy it is to book to how long it takes to be seen, rather than judging it on what’s been bought.’