October 30, 2024

bupa aged care

Bupa residents short-changed on care time

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Residents and staff of Bupa aged care facilities are bearing the brunt of the British multinational’s failure to comply with mandatory care minutes.

By early January, nearly 400 Bupa Assistants in Nursing (AiNs), Enrolled Nurses (ENs), and Registered Nurses (RNs) in NSW had signed a petition urging the company to address chronic understaffing by adhering to government-legislated care minutes. NSWNMA members collected signatures at more than half of Bupa sites in less than eight weeks. The petition, initiated by NSWNMA members, reveals that Bupa nursing homes in NSW are missing an average of 35 minutes of care per resident daily.

“Stop ignoring our clinical and safety concerns; one AiN is often left to care for 10 to 35 residents. Comply with care minutes now,” the petition asserts.

Concerns and Petition Highlights:

The petition calls on Bupa to acknowledge clinical and safety concerns raised by nursing staff and advocates for a “like-for-like” replacement policy to prevent inappropriate skill mix. It emphasizes the need for more RNs on shift and opposes directing direct care staff to non-clinical work like cleaning and laundry.

Some instances of non-compliance mentioned in the petition include:

  • Bupa Bankstown: Short 20 AiNs per day, residents missing 62 minutes of daily care on average (late 2023 data).
  • Bupa Queens Park: Short nine AiNs per day, costing residents 55 minutes of care per day on average.
  • Bateau Bay: Short 12 AiNs per day, resulting in 54 minutes of care.
  • Maroubra: Short 10 AiNs per day, causing a loss of 53 minutes of care.

These figures persist despite federal government payments to providers since October 1, 2022, to voluntarily meet the target of 200 care minutes per resident per day, which became mandatory on October 1, 2023.

Letter to CEO and Union Response:

In a letter to Nick Stone, CEO of Bupa Asia Pacific, NSWNMA General Secretary, Shaye Candish, expressed concerns that Bupa is not meeting the required mandated care minutes. The letter emphasizes the impact on nurses’ health and safety due to inadequate time for patient care and the expectation to fulfill other duties like kitchen and laundry.

NSWNMA members at Bupa report that facilities have failed to replace staff on leave, and additional staff to compensate for restrictions on student hours have not been employed since July 1, 2023.

Taxpayer Subsidies and Union Growth:

The government allocates billions in taxpayer dollars for major aged care reforms, including additional funding for nursing and care staff. Despite this, Bupa residents are not receiving the expected level of care. The NSWNMA witnessed significant growth in membership at Bupa in 2023, with new branches formed as staffing deteriorated and workloads increased.

“Our residents should be receiving a higher level of care with more staff to attend to their needs. They are not getting the care they deserve, which they and the government have paid for,” said Raj Subedi, RN, Branch Secretary at Bupa Baulkham Hills.

The union insists that full implementation of the mandatory care minutes requirement would alleviate staffing problems and enhance resident care.

Casual conversion at Bupa

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I am employed as a casual AiN through Bupa Aged Care. During the COVID-19 pandemic I have been picking up additional hours on a regular basis for about 14 months and believe these hours are not replacing someone on extended leave. Do I have a right to claim these hours permanently?

A casual employee who has been rostered on a regular and systematic basis over a period of 26 weeks has the right to request conversion to permanent employment on a permanent part-time contract. The contract would be based on the average number of hours as previously worked per fortnight, unless other arrangements are agreed between Bupa and the employee.

The above is known as ‘casual conversion’ and will not apply where a casual has covered absences of permanent staff that are expected to return to work. The above information can be found in the Bupa Aged Care Australia, NSWNMA, ANMF (NSW Branch) and HSU NSW Branch, New South Wales Enterprise Agreement 2018 clause 10.4 (h) (ii).

Please note this is a right to request and the employer cannot decline the request on reasonable grounds.

Aged Care staff working for Bupa underpaid up to $75 million 

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Aged care operator Bupa has admitted to underpaying staff a total of between $65 and $75 million over the past 7 years. 

The aged care operator indicated the underpayments stretch back to July 2014, and affect nurses, assistant-in-nursing (AIN) and other staff working at their facilities. 

Bupa Asia Pacific CEO Hisham El-Ansary indicated the underpayments equate to approximately 1.3% of Bupa’s annual payroll.  

Impacted current and former nurses and AINs will be notified by Bupa of any underpayments owed in March 2022, following work from their Pay Review Team. The review will indicate how much each staff member is owed, including any interest and super owed. 

Bupa has created a website for affected current and former staff members, which can be accessed here. Affected individuals can also call the Bupa Pay Review Team on 1800 979 639.  

The NSW Nurses and Midwives’ Association (NSWNMA) is committed to ensuring transparency and accountability from Bupa as it repays aged care workers the pay that they are owed. If you are an NSWNMA member and would like more information, please contact the Association here. 

Aged care giants under fire

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A Senate inquiry has shone a light on the murky financial and tax practices of Australia’s biggest for-profit aged care providers.

It raises questions about what they have to hide,” said the inquiry’s acting chair, NSW Labor Senator Jenny McAllister.

“Labor Senators are keen to hear from two of Australia’s largest for-profit aged care providers. We’ll be looking at what procedural options we have to make sure that happens.”

The Tax Justice Network (TJN) said Bupa, which operates in several countries, appeared to be engaged in “a global pattern of aggressive tax avoidance”.

TJN researcher Jason Ward said Bupa’s businesses in Australia, particularly aged care, had benefited heavily from government funding.

Also, it appeared that Bupa had structured its business in ways to minimise corporate tax obligations.

“Bupa’s sale of interests in its Australian partnership generated profits in the UK of over $568 million in 2016 and left an Australian entity with billions in debt,” Ward’s submission said.

“The Bupa case provides a clear example of the need for government reforms to mandate greater transparency and public accountability for government funding given to for-profit companies.”

Senator McAllister said tax officials told the inquiry they had concerns about tax arrangements used by some companies in the aged care sector.

“Senators heard that one of the sector’s largest operators – Opal – paid their owners more than $15 million in dividends in a year that their operating company paid no tax,” she said.

“Another large operator – Allity – were paying close to 15 per cent interest on a loan to a related party, an arrangement tax officials said could rarely if ever be described as arm’s length.

“For-profit aged care providers depend on government subsidies. Australians rightly expect that this money will be used to provide care for vulnerable and older members of our community, not hidden using tricky accounting practices.”

Allity told the inquiry the claim that the company engaged in aggressive tax planning and tax avoidance was “false and unsubstantiated”.

However, Jason Ward described the loan with its very high 15 per cent interest rate as a way for Allity’s investors “to extract a profit that is not subject to taxation in Australia”.

“It is hard to imagine that this shareholder loan at 15 per cent was cheaper than other funding options or predominately for commercial purposes and not tax minimisation,” Ward said.

“There is no doubt that these interest charges significantly reduced taxable income.”

Leading finance journalist Michael West said the 15 per cent interest rate on the Allity loan was seven times the prevailing cash rate.

“One of the main tricks of the trade in avoiding tax is getting loans from a related party offshore and paying high interest rates on it to get the money out of the country in lieu of paying tax,” he wrote.

Ward said Regis appeared to pay a higher share of taxes than other for-profit companies.

However, this may have been motivated by the $33 million in fully-franked dividends (dividends on which the company has already paid tax) received by the company’s two founders and largest shareholders, he added.

In addition, Regis’s top six executives and five non-executive directors received $5.4 million in total salaries and fees in 2017.

This was equivalent to 7.4 per cent of Regis’s total net profit after tax.

Letters to the Editor
Share your thoughts on this article or anything else important to you as nurses and midwives by sending a Letter to the Editor.

Four letters are published in the Lamp each month and the letter chosen as Letter of the Month will win a gift card. Please include a high-resolution photo along with your name, address, phone and membership number. You can submit your letter by emailing the Lamp: lamp@nswnma.asn.au

Victorian Bupa strike makes history

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Bupa nurses in Victoria have won a better deal and highlighted staffing problems at nursing homes by going on strike for the first time ever.

Unprecedented strike action by Bupa Aged Care nurses and carers in Victoria has delivered a wage increase of 11.25 per cent over three years under a new enterprise agreement (EA).

The first wage rise is back-paid from 1 August 2017 and the EA includes significant improvements to entitlements and workload management processes.

The EA comes with a signed agreement that the first wage increase in the next EA will be from 1 July 2021.

Bupa’s original offer was 2.1 per cent in a one-year agreement with no other changes.

Staff negotiated with Bupa for more than 14 months after rejecting the original offer.

More than 1000 nurses and carers took part in the protected industrial action across Bupa’s 26 Victorian nursing homes.

The union gave Bupa management the required five days’ notice to make arrangements for the care
of residents.

Lisa Fitzpatrick, secretary of the Victorian branch of the Australian Nursing and Midwifery Federation (ANMF) called it the most serious industrial action ever to occur in the private aged care sector in Victoria.

Staff took 37 days of action, including three days of strike action for an entire morning or afternoon shift.

They held stop work and community rallies across the state with a 400-strong rally outside Bupa’s Melbourne corporate headquarters.

ANMF members wore the union’s red ‘Value Recognise Reward’ campaign t-shirts, handed out campaign materials to residents, relatives and the public and spoke to the media.

Still seeking better staffing levels

Lisa Fitzpatrick said Bupa’s initial offer would have kept its nurses’ and carers’ wages in the bottom 10 per cent of aged care facilities.

She said that while the union was pleased with the outcome for wages and entitlements, it would continue to seek better staffing levels of registered nurses, enrolled nurses and personal care workers every shift to improve resident care.

“Aged care nurses and carers striking for the very first time is evidence something is deeply wrong with the aged care system and the way employers choose to roster staff,’ she said.

“Residents have increasingly complex nursing needs, but there are fewer nurses. Safe staffing is not supported by the aged care law, the aged care assessment audits, the Aged Care Complaints Commissioner or workplace laws.

“Members are telling us what they have told their managers. They are seriously concerned for their residents because they are understaffed, working short and going home worried about the care that was missed.”

The ANMF advocates enforced minimum nursing levels in the federal Aged Care Act 1997.

The Act only requires nursing homes to “maintain an adequate number of appropriately skilled staff to ensure that the care needs of care recipients are met”. ‘Adequate’ is not defined in the legislation and is not enforceable.

ANMF Victorian Assistant Secretary Paul Gilbert said Bupa nurses and carers had shone a spotlight on aged care staffing numbers and had prompted people to ask “what is a safe number of nurses and carers to look after our elderly loved ones?”

“Their action has set a new precedent for engagement in the aged care sector and sent a strong message to private aged care employers still to negotiate agreements,” he said.

 

NSW Bupa EA campaign continues

Nurses working for Bupa in NSW have told the NSWNMA that the situation in their workplaces is serious.

Nurses say they are working harder and harder to provide the level of care residents and families pay for and expect.

During visits to Bupa facilities across NSW over the past month, nurses have told the NSWNMA that:

  • Absences are not replaced
  • There is an exodus of nurses from many facilities
  • Shifts are too short without the opportunity to increase hours
  • Level of responsibility and workloads are unrealistic

Bupa does not pay as much as other aged care employers

Nurses say Bupa can’t attract new staff in many of its facilities in NSW.  This, on top of nurses leaving, has compounded the understaffing.

NSWNMA Members say:
Bupa must take action now to address staffing and workloads!

Members identify plenty of solutions to the situation at Bupa, including:

  • a pay increase to bring Bupa in line with its competitors;
  • an effective process to fix staffing;
  • improved medication processes and an AIN medication allowance;
  • rostered time to complete e-learning.

Join Your Campaign

NSWNMA members are getting involved to make life better at Bupa.  Nurses are pressuring Bupa to do the right thing and to start to take steps for a positive change.  Bupa can’t afford to let things get worse!

What you can do to help:

  • Encourage your colleagues to join the NSWNMA.
  • Like our Bupa Aged Care Nurses Facebook page.
  • Want to get involved? Contact Alfredo at the Association.

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