Bupa Aged Care class action alleges "systemic failures"

Bupa Aged Care Australia has been issued with a class action over alleged poor‑quality care at its residential aged care facilities, Echo Law has announced. Echo Law — a plaintiff law firm specialising in class actions against established interests — said the class action alleges that between 1 July 2019 and 11 April 2025, Bupa failed to provide the quality of care it promised to residents, and that it was required to deliver under law.

“Going into aged care is rarely an easy decision for individuals and their families. Bupa markets itself as a high-quality provider with sufficient, well-trained staff ready to provide a high level of personalised support, but the evidence shows that Bupa’s homes regularly and consistently fall below minimum acceptable benchmarks for care,” Echo Law Senior Associate Dr Lauren Meath said.

“Aged care residents and their families should be able to trust that they will receive safe and high‑quality care when entering aged care. The experience should match what is promised and marketed by Bupa, and what is expected by the Australian community and at law. Sadly at Bupa that has not been the case.”

In its announcement, Echo Law made reference to the Royal Commission into Aged Care Quality and Safety, which over the course of 2019 and 2020 heard evidence of “unacceptably high levels of substandard care” in the aged care system, which Echo Law said included “in facilities owned and operated by Bupa”.

Systemic understaffing at for-profit aged care providers and failures in staffing skill mix, to a level where those providers were not delivering an acceptable standard of care and service, were some of the key aspects of unacceptable care revealed by the Royal Commission, Echo Law said. “Since then, and despite the findings of the Royal Commission, these practices have continued at Bupa,” the Echo Law statement read.

“We know that staff on the floor are doing their best to provide safe and high-quality care. But individual nurses, care workers and support staff can only do so much. Bupa’s own reporting confirms widespread understaffing and failures to meet the minimum acceptable level of care required under Australian law at each of its aged care facilities. These are systemic failures at the corporate level and at the expense of residents,” Meath said.

“Aged care residents have the same rights as any other member of the community; however, those rights are all too often ignored. This class action seeks to enforce those rights and ensure that there are consequences for Bupa’s failings.”

The class action alleges that, by failing to provide staffing levels that would meet minimum acceptable standards, Bupa has “breached the contractual obligations it owes to residents under its Resident Agreements; and contravened consumer guarantees under the Australian Consumer Law by failing to provide services that are fit for purpose and delivered with due care and skill”.

The recovery of damages for breach of contract and for breaches of the guarantees owed to consumers under the Australian Consumer Law are being sought by the class action, with proceedings having been lodged in the Federal Court of Australia. Echo Law advised that residents who resided at Bupa between 1 July 2019 and 11 April 2025, and their families, can learn more about the class action and register their interest in being updated as it proceeds at www.echolaw.com.au/bupa.

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