VitalityHealth has launched Vitality Essentials, which it claims broadens the reach of key preventative health benefits to the wider employee base of its small to medium sized Private Medical Insurance (PMI) clients.

Vitality Essentials is provided at no additional cost to Vitality’s Business Healthcare clients who cover a percentage of their employees with full PMI.

Through Vitality Essentials, employees will have access to a number of lifestyle health and primary care benefits. Benefits include discounts of 40% on Virgin Active and Nuffield Health gym membership and up to 40% on wearable fitness devices.

Additionally, employees will have access to virtual GP consultations and the online Vitality Age assessment at no additional charge, and a discount on an annual Vitality Healthcheck.

Members of Vitality Essentials will earn Vitality points in the same way as other members, such as by getting active and undertaking biometric health screens. The number of Vitality points they earn will determine their Vitality status: Bronze, Silver, Gold and Platinum. Members will get the chance to win tickets to premier sporting events, opportunities that increase based on their Vitality status.

Employers will receive whole-of-workforce reporting on their employee health through the Vitality Age and Vitality Healthchecks, and also benefit from employees not needing to take time off work to visit a GP.

Data from VitalityHealth also found that employees who engage with the Vitality Programme had better long-term health outcomes. Over a one-year period, 35% of people who were smokers quit, 43% were insufficiently active and became more active, 40% had poor diets and improved their nutrition.

A cross-sectional analysis of over 90,000 Vitality members showed that employees who engage in physical activity as part of the Vitality Programme have significantly lower absence rates compared to those who do not engage in physical activity. When compared to the national average of 4.4 sick days per person, members tracking lower-intensity activity (steps) were found to have 24% fewer sick days, while members tracking higher-intensity activity (such as heart rate and calories burned) had 53% fewer sick days.

Stuart Scullion, executive chairman of The Association of Medical Insurance Intermediaries (AMII), said: “Another example of great innovation by Vitality while supporting employers too. Vitality Essentials will enable employers and employees to take a first step onto the healthcare ladder, which should result in increased productivity through improved health and wellbeing.

“It also gives AMII intermediary members something different to talk about in their discussions with clients and provides the opportunity to upsell once the employer sees engagement levels.”

Greg Levine, director of sales and distribution at VitalityHealth, said: “We’ve seen from our own research and experience that the Vitality Programme’s combination of health assessments, lifestyle partners and incentives and rewards, drives positive outcomes for employees and employers when it comes to health, wellbeing and productivity.

“However, these benefits can often be limited by a high proportion of employees not having access to health promotion assets – due to not being covered by Vitality’s PMI product. The new Essentials proposition will allow employers to extend the key benefits of Vitality to a greater number of their employees and, in doing so, it fully supports Vitality’s unique Shared Value approach of delivering products that make people healthier and enhance and protect their lives, in turn benefiting individuals, employers and society.”