The effects of alcohol abuse are hitting the workplace hard, so much so that a government committee has now made recommendations including introducing a minimum pricing scheme. The advice from the parliamentary health committee, if taken up, would mean that the government would set a minimum price for a unit of alcohol and could cause the cost of many drinks to increase. It’s a controversial idea which will not be met with open arms for the many people who like to have a drink in their own homes and those responsible drinkers will feel like they are being punished for the actions of others. But the fact is that alcohol abuse is now costing businesses £7.3bn every year, the majority of which comes from loss of productivity mainly from days taken off sick due to alcohol.


Despite these figures, alcohol related absences only make up between three to five percent of all absences taken from work, which could alarm some employers when they put into perspective that the eight to 14 million working days lost to alcohol is just a small proportion of the total. Many more working days are lost every year in the UK to other illnesses and one thing which employers can do to help reduce the effect of this to the productivity and efficiency of their own business is to take out a corporate private health insurance policy. This means that staff can avoid the longer waiting times of the NHS should they become ill and return to work in a quicker time than they would normally. There are many other benefits of providing private health cover for employees, which makes the small premiums seem a worthy investment for businesses.