Nuffield Health to provide a healthy state of mind by adding emotional wellbeing service to its gyms and hospitals

Nuffield Health acquired today cognitive behavioural therapy business, CBT Services, enabling the not-for-profit healthcare organisation to add an emotional wellbeing provision to its growing list of health and wellbeing services within its fitness and wellbeing gyms and hospitals.

This new service of cognitive behavioural therapy, counselling and general psychological therapies, now cements Nuffield Health’s position as the only independent healthcare organisation to offer a comprehensive list of health and wellbeing services. Nutritional therapy, physiotherapy, occupational health, health assessments, fitness training, employee wellbeing, hospital procedures and diagnostics and now emotional wellbeing are all available.

Launching initially to businesses for its employees, the emotional wellbeing service will then roll out in the next few months through Nuffield Health’s 112 consumer fitness and wellbeing gyms and will be available to all, regardless of a gym membership and Nuffield Health’s 31 hospitals. With one in four people in the UK experiencing a mental health problem in any given year[1], Nuffield Health hopes the new emotional wellbeing service will provide coping skills and support for stress, anxiety and depression.

Work related stress, anxiety and depression contributes to 35 per cent of all work related ill health cases with an average of 23 days lost per case[2], making the financial cost to British businesses an estimated £26 billion per year[3]. As the largest provider of employee wellbeing services and already working with 60 per cent of the FTSE 100, employees will be able to access its 1,200 accredited therapists via Nuffield Health’s website.

Steve Gray, Chief Executive Officer for Nuffield Health said: “This acquisition provides a missing piece of the jigsaw in our health and wellbeing proposition and will help us deliver a really vital service. Emotional health is just as important as our physical health and it makes perfect sense that as we already provide so many physical health services, we also offer support to maintain and achieve better emotional wellbeing. We hope to normalise and remove the stigma associated with asking for emotional health support and enable people to feel good inside and out.”

Founder and Clinical Director of CBT services Mick Gillingham, who set up the business in Telford, Shropshire in 1999 says: “I am truly excited about all the possibilities that the union with Nuffield Health brings. As a therapist, I am energised by the prospect of working with an extensive range of healthcare professionals, where jointly we can provide a comprehensive treatment package to patients going forward.”

The CBT Services purchase now complements an existing employee wellbeing programme Nuffield Health already offers the business community such as mindfulness sessions, bespoke wellbeing education events focusing on subjects such as sleep and nutrition, webinar programmes and group and individual emotional resilience coaching.

Today’s announcement also comes on the back of a recent acquisition Nuffield Health made of 35 Virgin Active gyms on the 1 August 2016, making Nuffield Health the second biggest fitness provider in the UK by number of consumer sites[4]. All 2,300 Virgin Active employees from the 35 gyms moved over along with 120,000 members.

For further information visit https://www.nuffieldhealth.com/emotionalwellbeing  or call 0333 920 5733.

Last updated Monday 12 December 2016

First published on Friday 30 September 2016