Recognising cancer as a long-term, manageable condition, employers are facing unprecedented challenges and opportunities in workplace support, as Richard Browne hears.
The conversation around cancer in the workplace is undergoing significant change. No longer viewed solely as a terminal diagnosis, it is increasingly understood as a manageable, long-term condition, fundamentally altering how employers approach support.
This was a key issue discussed by participants at the Health & Protection Cancer care in the workplace roundtable, in association with Perci Health.
The evolving landscape presents both unprecedented challenges, from increasing treatment costs threatening traditional private medical insurance (PMI) models to a lack of comprehensive support.
It also offers crucial opportunities for health and protection advisers to guide employers toward more holistic, sustainable wellbeing strategies.
Download the roundtable supplement for the discussion by following this link.
Addressing cancer has always been a very high priority for employers, according to Emily Jones, client consulting director at Broadstone.
She explained: “You can feel the pain of an employee when either they or their family member is experiencing it.”
Jones highlighted the increased availability of support, stating: “More than ever, we’ve got resource support and we do focus in terms of the provisions.”
However, the rapid development of cancer treatments presents a significant challenge for insurance policies especially around escalating costs.
“It is fantastic hearing about all these solutions that are out there – the development of treatments and how it can be so specific – it is brilliant and really exciting,” she continued.
But Jones observed the financial apprehension can be high, noting that “you can see the colour draining from the FDs”, when they contemplate the expense.
Armageddon
But the sheer expense of advanced cancer treatments poses an existential threat to current private medical insurance models.
The escalating cost of new treatments was a major concern for John Dean, head of health and protection at Secondsight, who foresaw a potential disaster for health insurance.
Dean warned: “Medical insurance and the new treatments coming down the line are just going to be Armageddon for health insurance.”
He elaborated: “It’s just going to kill health insurance as it is today if all these drugs they’re talking about come online and get licensed.”
Dean also highlighted the sheer volume and cost of new developments, explaining: “They’ve got 132 Advanced Therapy Medicinal Products (ATMP) tests going on at the moment around the UK – each one costing on average £500,000 a case.”
Given these figures, he concluded that product adjustments are inevitable, asserting: “We’ve got to put caps on the product or something.”
Changes in approach
The approach to supporting employees with cancer has shifted considerably over the last 13 years.
Beth Husted, associate director of health and benefits at WTW, remembered a time when “the first conversations were very much, ‘if you have someone that tells you they’ve got cancer, make sure you talk to them during their time off work’.”
Back then, it was generally assumed employees would go off sick, with communication focused on their eventual return. Today, the situation has changed significantly.
Husted explained: “Now the conversation is very much – ‘well, do you want to work? How can we support you to work?’
“And it’s all about making reasonable adjustments and accommodations and those sorts of things – but it doesn’t necessarily mean you’re fully off sick.”
Despite treatments becoming easier, with less need for hospital visits for chemotherapy, anxiety among individuals persists.
Husted noted that: “Most individuals don’t feel like they’re free of cancer until the night they’ve had that first year scan.”
She added: “Then they go to sleep at night and think I’m okay now – but then they wake up the next day and they worry about it again until the next scan.”
Critically, managers often lack this understanding, as “many managers aren’t going to have that idea. They’re not going to think about those anniversaries and those sorts of things,” she added.
Financial anxiety
Amanda Cran, group healthcare proposition leader of corporate consulting at Gallagher, also agreed that anxiety often stems from factors beyond the medical treatment itself.
She emphasised: “It’s not necessarily the treatment that’s causing anxiety.”
Instead, individuals might be “worried about finances or worried about how their child is going to deal with this message and those types of things and not the actual treatment itself.”
Cran highlighted the employer’s challenge in addressing these emotional burdens: “But how do you process those other things that are emotive to you that are causing anxiety and stress.”
New condition
Kelly McCabe, co-founder and CEO of Perci Health, noted that while cancer is not new, treatment improvements have made it “almost an entirely new condition.”
She acknowledged a common misconception: “But there is that barrier as well, where people think we’ve been dealing with cancer for ages, so we don’t need to do anything new.”
McCabe insisted: “But it’s a new condition now – it’s a long-term condition, it’s not how it would have been 20 to 30 years ago.”
She argued that PMI providers should adapt their approach to align with these developments.
McCabe stated: “The private medical insurers are in some regards stagnating or limiting progress in the change of how we support people in the workplace with cancer.
“Private medical insurance is expensive – when they come and talk to you about the benefits they deliver, a large part of that is the amazing cancer treatment they offer.
“And therefore, when it comes to thinking about what benefits you need to support cancer, you think PMI – because that’s their narrative.”
Crucially, she pointed out: “Once treatment ends, someone is going back to work, or someone’s caring for a loved one, or someone is worried before a diagnosis – all of those bits are missed.”
Gold dust
Karen Smith, corporate team lead at Towergate, underlined the fundamental importance of financial security for employees. If forced to choose, she would advocate for income protection (IP) insurance over PMI.
Smith stated: “I need to know that I’ve got that stability for my income moving forward.”
She argued that while PMI is valuable, given the NHS as a fallback, the critical question is: “What am I going to get if I cannot work and my employer is not going to support me through that.”
She described this situation as “a lottery – that’s where employers also fall foul of treating some employees differently from others and that is where income protection comes into its own.”
Smith also stressed that group IP should be paid fairly and consistently across the board. However, the comprehensive support services offered by IP providers were highlighted as “second to none.”
Smith shared: “The support through support services given by the providers we deal with gives me goosebumps.”
This holistic support extends not only to the employee but also to their partner, children, and the entire family unit, as well as to the employer and manager, she noted.
Smith said: ”The support that it gives to the employer and to the manager as well is gold dust.”
Smith concluded: “It’s not just about being able to afford my mortgage and having one financial worry off my own personal shoulders.
“That means you can concentrate on your heath, your wellbeing and that of your family.”
Download the roundtable supplement for the discussion by following this link.
