Benenden Healthcare, a mutual healthcare provider, has secured a deal to offer the staff of Melton Mowbray Building Society an employer-paid healthcare scheme.

Melton Mowbray is the first private sector organisation to join Benenden Healthcare, which formerly offered its services only to public sector workers. However, both are mutual organisations run for their members.

Signing up to Benenden Healthcare's corporate health plan gives Melton Mowbray's employees access to a wide range of discretionary healthcare services with prompt diagnosis and treatment.

Benenden Healthcare's services act as a back-up to the NHS, providing customers with more rapid access to treatment. It also helps towards the cost of physiotherapy, podiatry and chiropody, and provides financial support for those living with cancer or TB. Services are provided on a case-by-case discretionary basis, with no extra charges for pre-existing conditions.

"As an established organisation, with a large employee base, we are often approached by service providers who want to supply employee benefit packages to our staff," said Martin Reason, CEO of Melton Mowbray. "Benenden Healthcare stood out for us - not only does the Society provide a cost-effective, tailored healthcare plan for our employees, as it's a fellow mutual organisation, it shares our ethos and values, and understands how we work too."

Ken Hesketh, Chief Executive of Benenden Healthcare Society, said: "It is the first time we have teamed up with a building society, since we extended our membership beyond the public sector and opened it up to those organisations we feel have the same genetic make-up as us. This is a very exciting and encouraging partnership for mutual organisations."

Based in York, Benenden Healthcare Society has around 940,000 members.

 
Ken Hesketh