The service, which offers two afternoon doctor clinics and two afternoon prescribing nurse clinics each week, was introduced to meet employees’ emergency/acute needs, which were not being met by their own doctors, often because of delays in getting an appointment.
The law firm has seen an increasing number of international employees using the service, in line with the growth in its international secondment activity.
Jackie Palmer senior manager, compensation and benefits at Freshfields, says: “It would be quite difficult measuring the absolute correlation between offering this service and reductions in sickness absence because we have offered a service for many years.
“The service certainly contributes significantly to employees being able to swiftly access treatment and I am sure that this does have a direct impact on the amount of time taken off for sickness.”
