My Family Care, the UK's largest provider of employee backup care benefits, has acquired Tinies UK Ltd, the crèche, holiday club and onsite nursery provider, in a move that broadens the range of family-friendly employee benefits it provides to employers. The company also reported continued strong growth in its emergency child and eldercare services, with 19,000 hours of care provided in 2008 to over 5,000 parents and carers registered to use the service.

The Tinies acquisition will see a team of 180 childcare professionals join the My Family Care organisation, and add corporate customers including Cannons, David Lloyd and GlaxoSmithKline to My Family Care's rapidly expanding client list. Tinies currently provides onsite crèche facilities for these companies.

"Adding Tinies' onsite crèche provision to our comprehensive portfolio of family-friendly benefits and services strengthens our position as a one-stop shop for employers looking to support parents and employees with care responsibilities in the workplace," said Ben Black, managing director of My Family Care. "We continue to listen to what our customers need, and look for opportunities to enhance the range of services we can offer whilst maintaining our commitment to provide flexible and high-quality services."

My Family Care has seen its backup care services grow rapidly year on year as more employers identify backup care as a benefit of value to both themselves as an employer and their staff, and increasing numbers of staff register and use the service. In total, My Family Care has seen backup care usage grow 174% in 2008. The company currently provides around 250 days of backup care every month to the 5,500 employees registered to use its services. Around 174,000 UK employees have access to My Family Care's backup care services as part of their employee benefits packages.

"Backup care is the fastest growing benefit in the US," continued Black. "With 42% of the UK work force already estimated to have care responsibilities (either child or elder), and the 85 years of age and over demographic identified as the fastest growing age group in the UK, it is clear that the need to provide backup care services to help employees balance their work and life commitments is set to continue to be of increasing importance for UK workers and employers alike."

For more information, visit www.myfamilycare.co.uk