Bupa (British United Provident Association)
Profile
Bupa (British United Provident Association) is a multinational healthcare company that owns and runs clinics, hospitals and care homes and offers health insurance services across the world from Brazil to Hong Kong to New Zealand. All told, some 20,000 elderly people live in its facilities, with about a third of that number in Australia and a third in England. Reports by the UK Care Quality Commission showed that 115 of Bupa’s 290 UK homes had serious and avoidable failures between early 2000 and 2015. And a 2019 report by the Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission in Australia showed that over half of the 72 nursing homes run by Bupa were failing basic standards of care.
Dental services, care homes, private hospitals, health insurance, outpatient clinics
Violations
Penalty: $128,704
Year: 2014
Date: October 29, 2014
Offense Group: financial offenses
Primary Offense: economic sanction violation
Level of Government: federal
Action Type: agency action
Agency: Office of Foreign Assets Control
Civil or Criminal Case: civil
(March 22, 2023)
Stories
- Who Really Runs Britain?: The Private Companies Taking Control of Benefits, Prisons, Asylum, Deportation, Security, Social Care and the NHS by Alan White (2017)
- Shadow State: Inside the Secret Companies that Run Britain by Alan White (2016)
- Beyond the Facade by Eileen Chubb of Compassion in Care (2008)
Activism
UK: Campaigners gather outside major care provider headquarters to demand real living wage for carers
Gemma Loyd | Home Care Insight | July 13, 2022
This includes Bupa and Barchester Healthcare in London; HC-One in Darlington; Four Seasons Healthcare in Cheshire; and Care UK in Colchester to call on them to commit to paying their workers the real Living Wage.
Australia: Doctors attack Bupa plan to restrict gap cover to its approved hospitals
Melissa Davey | The Guardian | March 6, 2018
Bupa has drawn the ire of Australia’s peak medical body after informing doctors insured patients would qualify for gap cover only if they were treated in a Bupa-approved hospital or medical centre.
Australia: Strike over: Bupa nurses and carers negotiate nearly 4% per annum wage increase in Victoria
The Weekly Source | January 30, 2018
The deal follows 14 months of negotiations, during which over 1,000 nurses and carers across Bupa’s 26 aged care facilities took part in 37 days of industrial action. This included three days of full strikes (a first in the aged care sector) and a 400-person rally outside Bupa’s Melbourne headquarters.
International:
- European Public Service Union (EPSU)
- European Network of Corporate Observatories (ENCO)
- UNI Global Union
Australia:
UK:
Other:
- National Federation of Private Health and Allied Unions (FENASSAP) - Chile
- Consumers' Association of Ireland - Ireland
& Lawsuits
London care home death: Bupa must pay record £1.04m over fire failings
BBC | January 6, 2022
Private healthcare provider Bupa must pay a record £1.04m after admitting failings when one of its care home residents in south London burned alive.
UK: Trust to sue Bupa, accusing it of ‘immoral behaviour’
NHS For Sale | December 23, 2021
Royal Surrey Foundation Trust is set to take legal action against the private healthcare insurance giant, Bupa, accusing the company of failing to fully reimburse the NHS for treating its members, HSJ has learned.
Australia: Bupa aged care ordered to pay $6 million for services not provided, Federal Court rules
Karen Percy | ABC News | May 12, 2020
The Federal Court has ordered aged care provider Bupa to pay $6 million in penalties and millions more in refunds for residents who paid thousands of dollars a year for services they never received.
Australia: Case study of Bupa's Tasmanian facility begins before Royal Commission into Aged Care
Emily Jarvie | The Examiner | November 13, 2019
A woman has been left haunted by her mother's experience as a resident at Bupa's South Hobart aged care facility.
UK: Kenneth Ibbetson: Bupa fine over Legionnaire's death halved
The BBC | October 11, 2019
Private care provider Bupa has won an appeal against a £3m fine over the death of pensioner at a nursing home. Kenneth Ibbetson, 86, died after contracting Legionnaire's disease at Hutton Village care home in Brentwood, Essex, in June 2015.
Australia: Bupa Traralgon aged care home (VIC) faces potential class action after second sanction
The Weekly Source | June 4, 2019
Traralgon is one of nine Bupa facilities across the country to be sanctioned by ACQSC in the last 12 months. Several of its homes (including the Eden, Traralgon and Seaforth sites) have been sanctioned or found to be non-compliant more than once.
UK: Bupa Fined $228,000 After Stolen Data Surfaces on Dark Web
Jeremy Kirk | Bank Info Security | October 2, 2018
The U.K.'s data protection regulator has fined Bupa Insurance Services £175,000 ($228,000) for failing to stop an employee from stealing 547,000 customer records, which were later offered for sale on the dark web.
UK: Powys council 'may take legal action' over Bupa-run care homes
BBC | August 23, 2017
Powys council is considering taking legal action against a private healthcare provider after discovering it is transferring the running of 12 care homes to a third party.
UK: 'Horror of institutional abuse' in Bupa care homes as secret filming reveals shocking catalogue of abuse towards elderly dementia victims
Nick Craven | Daily Mail | June 17, 2017
But an undercover investigation at a home run by one of Britain’s most prestigious private healthcare providers reveals shocking ‘institutional abuse and neglect’, including giving residents used incontinence pads and forcing them to have bed baths at 3.30am.
Jamaica: Insurer to stand trial over non-payment of $34m surgery claim
McPherse Thompson | Jamaica Gleaner | February 22, 2017
Bupa Global, which is based in the United Kingdom, initially agreed to pay the claim, but that was before it was presented with the bill. It ended up honouring just 12 per cent of the surgeon's invoice.
UK: Bupa 'harming NHS' by offering patients “bribes” of £2k to use public services instead of private hospitals
Andrew Gregory | The Mirror | April 8, 2014
And Labour demanded the Government immediately launch an investigation into the impact of the “bribes” on the NHS. Health campaigners raised concerns the “dumping” of patients onto the NHS would trigger “significant problems” in an “already over-stretched” health service.
UK: Bupa care home cost-cutting 'disgraceful', says judge
The BBC | March 16, 2012
A judge has criticised care home owner Bupa over the cost-cutting pressure it placed on a manager. Judge Mark Brown spoke as he sentenced a Liverpool care home manager to an eight month suspended jail sentence for wilful neglect.
& Relations
Australia: Bupa, the worst aged-care failure
The Australian | October 13, 2022
Bupa is the worst-performing aged-care provider in Australia three years after a royal commission exposed its shocking track record of...
Australia: Bupa underpaid 18,000 staff by up to $75m
David Marin-Guzman | Australian Financial Review | December 15, 2021
Bupa underpaid more than a third of its workforce employed over the past seven years by as much as $75 million, according to a review of its payroll systems.
Chile: "I was discriminated against because of my gender identity at the Bupa Clinic in Santiago"
Diosceline Camacaro Martínez | Organizando Trans Diversidades | September 7, 2021
Fernando Ojeda, a trans migrant activist, assures that he suffered discrimination and abuse at the Bupa Clinic in Santiago, a place where, in addition to not knowing his social name, they decided to charge him as a private individual and did not take into account his health forecast.
Mass Layoffs at Bupa Chile
UNI Global Union | June 24, 2021
Under its development plan policy, the multinational began to massively lay off workers from the following companies: Isapre Cruzblanca, Clínica Bupa Antofagasta, Clínica Bupa Reñaca, Clinica Bupa Santiago and Red Salud Integramedica, which represent 1% of the national GDP.
Bupa's aged care homes failing standards across Australia
Anne Connolly & John Stewart | ABC News | September 11, 2019
More than half of the nursing homes run by Australia's largest private provider Bupa are failing basic standards of care and 30 per cent are putting the health and safety of the elderly at "serious risk", according to accreditation reports analysed by the ABC.
Mary Parkes was 'stripped of her dignity' at London care home
Simon Murphy | The Guardian | November 23, 2018
Niece says the widow almost died after contracting sepsis due to poor level of care.
UK: Beacon Edge care home rated 'inadequate' for second time
The BBC | July 16, 2017
Residents in a Cumbria care home had "avoidable falls" and "unexplained bruising", inspectors have found. Beacon Edge care home in Penrith has been rated inadequate by the Care Quality Commission (CQC) for the second time after an unannounced inspection.
UK: Unsafe and short staffed Preston care home put in special measure
The BBC | January 17, 2017
A nursing home that left one nurse in charge of 46 residents several times has been put into special measures by health inspectors.
UK: Troubled Pentland Hill nursing home closed by Bupa
The BBC | June 18, 2014
The troubled Pentland Hill Nursing Home in Edinburgh, which was criticised by the Care Inspectorate, is to be closed by its operator Bupa. The inspectorate found "serious concerns" during an unannounced inspection last year.
UK: 'Urine-soaked' patients at Bupa Crawley care home
The BBC | June 26, 2013
Elderly care home residents in Crawley were left soaked to the chest in urine, a health watchdog report has revealed. The Care Quality Commission (CQC) found a series of failings including staff not supporting high dependency patients at Oakhurst Grange.
UK: Watchdog lashes latest Bupa price hike as 'extraordinary'
Aideen Sheehan | The Independent | January 21, 2006
A consumer pressure group has slated Bupa's latest price increase that is four times the rate of annual inflation.
UK: Whistleblowers forced to quit
The Guardian | July 13, 2000
When seven former care assistants blew the whistle on colleagues who were abusing frail residents of a Bupa-run home for the elderly they were forced to resign, an industrial tribunal in Ashford, Kent, heard yesterday.
Covid-19
Australia: Competition watchdog puts profiting private health insurance funds on notice
Stephanie Dalzell | ABC News | December 9, 2021
Australia's competition watchdog has put private health insurers on notice, warning they must follow through on a promise to pay back any profits gained on the back of Covid-19 lockdowns and restrictions.
Medibank Private and Bupa have failed Australians during COVID-19
CHOICE | July 21, 2020
"Private health funds pocketed $1 billion during the COVID-19 lockdown when health services were cancelled or restricted."
UK: Bupa rebuts allegation it hid COVID-19 infections from staff and families
Lee Peart | Care Home Professional | May 14, 2020
Bupa has issued a firm rebuttal of allegations it hid COVID-19 infections from staff and families at its Richmond Witney retirement village in Oxfordshire.
Financials
Note: Most recent list is not always the most complete list.
Croctail Subsidiary Tool using the CorpWatch API - This API extracts the subsidiary relationship information from Exhibit 21 of companies' 10-K filings with the US SEC.
- CIK numbers link to SEC database (EDGAR)
- Section 21 links to SEC list of companies.
- Bupa Croctail Profile
Bupa is a privately held company.
Political Influence
OpenSecrets.org Profile of Bupa
& Evasion
France vs Bupa Insurance
TP Cases | December 21, 2022
In 2009 a British company – Bupa Insurance Limited – absorbed the Danish company International Health Insurance, whose shares it had acquired in 2005 and which had had a French branch since 1993. Following an audit for FY 2009 and 2010, the tax authorities considered that the French branch had passed on to Bupa Insurance Limited, free of charge, the customers associated with its insurance business in France, and considered this transaction to be an indirect transfer of profits within the meaning of Article 57 of the General Tax Code.
Australia: Bupa reaches $157m settlement with tax office after decade-long dispute
Christopher Knaus | The Guardian | March 7, 2019
Aged care provider and health insurer Bupa has paid the Australian tax office $157m after settling a long-running dispute.
Australian nursing home giants shifting millions in profits offshore, report finds
Christopher Knaus | The Guardian | May 1, 2018
Australia’s largest aged care providers are shifting profits offshore and paying minimal tax, all while receiving hundreds of millions of dollars in government subsidies, a new report finds.
UK: NHS Trusts back out of working with Bupa over unpaid medical bills
Millie Turner | City A.M. | October 30, 2022
At least two NHS Trusts have reportedly backed out of working with medical insurer Bupa over claims of unpaid bills.
Bupa pulls out of every Northern Ireland NHS hospital
Lisa Smyth | Belfast Telegraph | November 13, 2017
Northern Ireland people paying Bupa upwards of £3,500 a year for cover may now have to travel outside the province even for routine operations, such as hip and knee replacements.
UK: Scandal-hit care home to reopen
Kate Pickles | Edinburgh Evening News | November 21, 2014
“I don’t know what’s gone on behind the scenes but to me it’s just another example of Bupa putting profits before the care of people.”
Australia: Insurance firm wants to mine e-health data
Josh Taylor | ZD Net | January 11, 2012
Insurance company Bupa wants the Federal Government to provide anonymous patient data from the Personally-Controlled E-Health Records (PCEHR) system to companies for research on Australian health.
UK: GMB union urges government not to buy Bupa beds
Ben Willmott | Personnel Today | January 15, 2002
The GMB union has urged the Government to halt its plans to buy 35 beds from health provider Bupa after research revealed more than 200 beds at NHS hospitals in Epsom, Oxford and London have been closed due to cash cuts and nursing shortages.
UK: NHS union declares war over Bupa deal
Andrew Grice | The Independent | December 5, 2001
Union leaders described the decision to use Bupa's Redwood Hospital in Redhill, Surrey, for non-urgent operations as a "declaration of war" which put their efforts to strike a peace deal with the Government over public-private partnerships (PPPs) "almost back to square one".
Procurement
Bupa contracts with the U.S. federal government (via USA Spending)