The Employee Assistance Professionals Association UK (EAPA) has expressed sadness over allegations that Health Assured breached its professional standards over the issue of confidentiality, and has opened an investigation.
“EAPA UK is extremely saddened to read the allegations brought to the public’s attention by BBC News on 12 July 2024 against one of our accredited provider members,” EAPA said in a statement today.
The statement follows a report from the BBC that Health Assured had breached rules of confidentiality among other serious issues.
Health Assured told Health & Protection that it denied all the claims made in the BBC investigation that it had breached the confidentiality of its users by allowing corporate clients to eavesdrop on calls.
Health Assured CEO Bertrand Stern-Gillet said the claims were ‘categorically untrue’ and ‘unfair’.
It is not the first investigation into Health Assured this year, as in March Health & Protection reported the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy (BACP) was investigating claims from another BBC investigation that Health Assured had behaved in an unethical way.
Commenced investigation
Without naming Health Assured, EAPA UK said it had commenced an investigation to understand from one of its accredited provider members the facts behind the reported allegations and if true, how that was allowed to happen and to get full clarification on the mitigations being put forward to ensure this does not happen again in the future.
“As the representative body for the EAP sector, we set out professional standards which we expect our members to adhere to,” it said.
“We take alleged breaches to our standards seriously.
“Confidentiality is the central tenet of an EAP service and creates trust from service users. It is at the heart of what we do, and a critical requirement.
“As such all EAPs must abide by this. It is imperative that users of EAP services can be confident and certain that all calls are fully confidential.”
The EAPA highlighted that each accredited provider is required to undertake a verification audit of its standards which is carried out independently.
“The audit and accreditation process requires that responses to the confidentiality and data protection questions must be positive, and that the auditors are satisfied that the provider’s confidentiality statements pose no cause for concern,” it continued.
It added: “It is important that our service users trust that EAP providers do not operate in the way reported and they should be confident that the only limitations to confidentiality are within the confines of safeguarding and UK law.”
And it also warned that firms which fail to meet the standards could be dropped from the organisation.
“It is essential that all EAPA UK members adhere to our professional standards at all times. Failure to do this may result in the members’ verification and/or membership being suspended or removed,” it added.
The EAPA said it will report on the findings of its investigation once it has been completed.