Bupa's aged care homes failing standards across Australia

Updated

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.

Key points: BUPA has had 13 homes sanctioned by the Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission

The company has been under fire for overcharging residents for extra services it did not provide

BUPA chief executive Hisham El-Ansary says he is "truly sorry" for not getting the quality of care right for all their residents

Advocates are now asking whether Bupa — which receives almost half a billion dollars in government funding each year — is fit to be an aged care provider.

But with almost 6,500 residents and 72 homes, they also question whether the Government could revoke Bupa's accreditation without "catastrophic" consequences for the residents.

"They have a terrible record, but I just think that Bupa is too big to fail," said Lynda Saltarelli, from advocacy group Aged Care Crisis.

"I mean if this was any other small provider I think their accreditation status would be revoked."

The Minister for Aged Care and Senior Australians Richard Colbeck said he and the Department of Health were "closely monitoring" Bupa's performance, with the department meeting with company representatives weekly to check its progress.

He described "persistent failure" to meet the standards as "simply unacceptable".

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Failure in basic care

The Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission conducts inspections and accredits nursing homes. The ABC has analysed the accreditation reports of Bupa's Australian homes.

Over the past year, Bupa nursing homes have been taken to task by the aged care regulator for failures including understaffing, and physical and sexual assaults of residents.

Of Bupa's 72 nursing homes:

45 have failed to meet all the health and safety standards

22 homes have been declared as putting the health and safety of residents at "serious risk"

13 Bupa homes have been sanctioned, which means they have lost government funding and are unable to take new residents

Five homes — NSW's Seaforth, Berry and Eden; Victoria's Traralgon and Tasmania's South Hobart — have had their accreditation revoked. Four of them, not including Seaforth, were re-accredited

Scabies contracted in Bupa facility

Aileen Ashford's brother Michael was in a Bupa home in Echuca, Victoria, due to early onset dementia and Down syndrome.

Over a year Ms Ashford made many complaints about staff shortages and untrained carers, resulting in poor hygiene and living conditions for Michael. But the final straw came when Michael contracted scabies.

Scabies is an infectious disease spread through skin-to-skin contact. Ms Ashford believes the scabies was transferred from staff, a visitor or other residents because her brother never left the facility.

She complained to Bupa's head office, which conducted an internal investigation, but she says the company would not acknowledge that Michael had scabies.

"They weren't going to admit wrongdoing because of the liability that would create for them as an organisation," she said.

"It was a normal bureaucratic response. It didn't have any warmth or human touch in it or a sense that 'We're here for the people that we care for.'"

Michael spent two years at Bupa Echuca and died in 2017.

Bupa did not respond to specific questions about Mr Ashford's case.

Home of 'shoe attack' to remain open

Bupa Seaforth, in Sydney's lower north shore, has been on the "serious risk" list since it hit the headlines in September last year when a worker was secretly filmed hitting an elderly dementia patient with a shoe. The worker was sentenced to four months in jail, and convicted for assaulting an elderly man with dementia.

After the assault, the regulator found it failed 34 of its 44 quality standards. The regulator gave the nursing home a "timetable for improvement" to meet all 44 standards.

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But in the latest report in May this year, Bupa Seaforth still failed 26 out of 44 standards and had its accreditation revoked.

In a statement to the ABC, Bupa's chief executive officer, Hisham El-Ansary, promised to improve standards and apologised for the company's failures, saying: "We haven't always got the quality of care right for all our residents and for that, I am truly sorry."

Bupa Seaforth's accreditation expires on October 27. If it doesn't meet the 44 standards, the Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission will take away its licence permanently and cut funding.

Ms Janet Anderson, head of the commission, said Bupa could continue to operate the Seaforth site without accreditation and the regulator's right to inspect the site would disappear.

"However, the commission is able to continue receiving and seeking to resolve complaints about an approved provider who is not accredited (subject to the complaint being in scope of the commission's functions)," she said.

But Senator Colbeck said approved providers must either return to compliance or "risk having their status revoked, which brings significant financial penalty".

Too big to fail?

Bupa received almost $460 million in government subsidies for its nursing homes last year.

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Jason Ward, from the Tax Justice Network, spent a year investigating private providers of aged care in Australia, including Bupa. He said Bupa has become too big for the Government to fail it.

"What do you do if the largest for-profit company loses its accreditation status?" he asked.

"What do you do if 7,000 elderly residents who are in need of high-care services are suddenly without a provider?"

Bupa was forced to pay the Australian Tax Office $157 million in March after the Tax Justice Network report on profit shifting.

The ACCC is also taking Bupa to court for false and misleading advertising in failing to deliver extra services promised to aged care residents — such as physio, better meals and massage. Bupa has been contacting families at 21 of its aged care homes to refund the charges, but that has not stopped the ACCC court action expected later this year.

Ms Saltarelli, who objected to Bupa entering the Australian market in 2007 because of its poor record of care in the UK, believes Bupa's position is safe because if the Government forced it out there would be a crisis.

"They have been a serial offender in cutting costs, cutting back on staff in the UK in Scotland as well as here in Australia," she said.

"We haven't actually seen in Australia such a large provider fail and it would be catastrophic if this was to occur with Bupa."

Watch the story tonight on 7.30.

Topics: aged-care, community-and-society, carers, health, government-and-politics, australia, seaforth-2092, sydney-2000

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