New benefits to help your clients support transgender employees

20 Sep 2022 2 minutes

More employers are recognising the need to promote inclusivity in the workplace. Over the past few years, we’ve seen an increased demand from employers looking to better support employees through the gender affirmation process. However:

  • The number of gender identity clinics available on the NHS is very limited. And those available to people aged 17 and under are fewer still.
  • Unfortunately, there’s currently a long waiting list for support on the NHS – and procedures such as facial surgery aren’t usually available through the National Health system.

We’ve responded to this need

To help speed up access to treatment and support, we’ve recently enhanced the Gender Identity benefit we can offer corporate clients through our private healthcare.  

The new benefits are available as an optional add on to our Optimum and Optimum Referral private healthcare products. 

Enhanced Support for Gender Identity

From January 2023, new and renewing corporate healthcare clients will be able to select from two different levels of cover:

  • Core Cover – offering specialist mental health support and benefits which align to the assessment and hormone support offered through NHS Gender Identity Clinics.
  • Enhanced Cover Option – extending cover to include surgical interventions and support not readily available from the NHS such as surgeries to masculinise or feminise the face and hair transplantation.

Our new benefit options have been developed together with our clinical experts, considering the World Professional Association for Transgender Health Care Standards and applying them practically in the private healthcare environment.  

Find out more about Gender Identity Cover and other support

You can discover more about our Gender Identity Cover and the support it offers in our product brochure.  

It also contains more details on ways in which employers can further help their employees, with contact details for external support organisations, as well as factual information on what is and isn’t available under the NHS.

Download our brochure Supporting transgender employees

If you’d like to find out more about this kind of support, please contact your usual Healthcare consultant.