Preventive health moves deeper into benefits

As employers look for more effective ways to manage absence, support retention, and strengthen health provision beyond traditional perks, Emerald has secured a new route into the market through a partnership with Epassi UK. The deal will make Emerald’s GP-led preventive health platform available across a network that reaches 12 million employees in the UK and Ireland.

Emerald combines in-clinic laboratory screening with a digital platform that brings together test results, wearable-device data, fitness app information, and medical history. That information is then reviewed by GPs, allowing them to provide personalised guidance and track progress over time. The company says the aim is to move beyond isolated testing and give employees a clearer path from screening to follow-up support.

That joined-up model addresses a weakness that has long shaped workplace health. In many organisations, support is spread across separate services — health assessments, remote GP access, gym benefits, wellbeing content, and employee assistance tools — with little continuity between them. Employees may have access to several resources, yet still struggle to understand what action to take, what should happen next, or where to go when a concern falls between categories.

Emerald is positioning itself against that fragmentation by putting clinical oversight and longitudinal tracking at the centre of the offer. Since launch, it says it has supported thousands of members in the UK, and its platform is intended to give doctors a fuller view of health data alongside an individual’s medical history. Epassi UK will make the service available through HealthiFlex and MyHealthDiscounts, with tiered options designed for different employer requirements.

Alexander Badalyan, CEO and co-founder of Emerald, said: “Epassi UK is setting the standard for connected, proactive benefits and we’re excited that this partnership will help more employees access proactive, doctor-led prevention. Emerald is built to move beyond ‘test and forget’, connecting clinical screening with wearable data and medical history so members can take meaningful action and track improvement over time.”

Demand for that kind of support has been rising as workforce health becomes harder to separate from business performance. CIPD research suggests employees in the UK are now off sick for an average of 9.4 working days a year, while government figures have put the annual cost of poor workplace health to employers at around £85 billion. In that environment, prevention is becoming more than a wellbeing theme. Businesses are under pressure to reduce avoidable absence and help people access support before problems become more disruptive.

That shift is already visible in the market. In recent reporting on workplace heart testing, employers were being offered structured screening and follow-up support inside the workplace itself. Emerald’s approach reaches into the same territory, but with a broader data layer and a stronger emphasis on ongoing GP review rather than a single event-based check.

Benefits providers are moving in that direction for commercial reasons as well as clinical ones. Employers are becoming less interested in large baskets of lightly used perks and more interested in services that can show continuity, relevance, and clearer outcomes. A preventive health platform with medical oversight is easier to position inside absence management, employee value propositions, and broader retention strategies than a collection of disconnected wellness tools.

There is also a credibility question across digital health. The market is full of apps and services that generate insights but leave individuals to interpret them with limited support. Emerald is betting that regulated, clinician-founded infrastructure will carry more weight as employers become more selective about what they fund. A platform that links diagnostic screening to private GP support offers something more concrete than general lifestyle guidance, especially when businesses are looking for interventions that can sit alongside existing healthcare and benefits provision.

Alongside screening and GP support, the partnership will also bring webinars, educational content, and in-person employer sessions covering stress, longevity, women’s health, and weight management. That wider programming reflects how health support is being reframed. Employers are no longer only reacting to illness after it affects attendance or performance. Increasingly, they are trying to make prevention visible, accessible, and easier to act on while staff are still well enough to benefit from it.

If that trend continues, the employee benefits market is likely to look more clinical and more connected than it did even a few years ago. Platforms that can combine data, oversight, and practical follow-through are likely to have a stronger case than those offering engagement without continuity. Emerald’s latest deal places it squarely inside that shift.