Bupa Aged Care hit with class action over alleged failings of care quality for residents

Bupa Aged Care Australia has been slapped with a class action that alleges residents received poor quality care at the company’s aged care facilities in contravention of Australian law and the company’s contractual obligations to residents.

Legal firm Echo Law has filed proceedings in the Federal Court on behalf of residents who lived in Bupa Aged Care centres, and their families, over the past six years.

Bupa operates 57 aged care homes that support more than 5,000 residents with residential, respite, specialised dementia and palliative care nationally, with most of the facilities located in NSW and Victoria.

The class action follows concerns raised by the royal commission into the aged care sector in 2019 and 2020 that heard evidence of “unacceptably high levels of substandard care” in the aged-care system, including at facilities owned and operated by Bupa.

Echo Law notes that among the critical points of unacceptable care revealed by the royal commission were systemic understaffing by for-profit aged care providers and failures in the staffing skill mix which found some providers were not delivering an acceptable standard of care and service.

The law firm is alleging that since the findings of the royal commission, these practices have continued at Bupa.

“Going into aged care is rarely an easy decision for individuals and their families,” says Dr Lauren Meath, Echo Law senior associate.

“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.

“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.”

Echo Law’s class action alleges that between 1 July 2019 and 11 April 2025 Bupa failed to provide the quality of care it promised to residents.

The class action alleges that, by failing to provide staffing levels that would meet minimum acceptable standards, Bupa breached its contractual obligations to residents and contravened consumer guarantees under the Australian Consumer Law.

“We know that staff on the floor are doing their best to provide safe and high-quality care,” says Meath.

“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 says 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.”

Among those who have joined the class action is Sarah Laing, who is participating on behalf of her late father William ‘Roy’ Anderson who resided in a Bupa facility in 2022.

During her father’s residence at Bupa, Echo Law says Laing was “horrified” by the level of care provided to him ranging from serious gaps in staffing and staff training that left her father in “pain and in distress”.

“Dad lived a life of dignity and service,” says Laing.

“He had an active social life, loved the rugby, and loved his family. It is every child’s worst nightmare to see their parent treated so poorly at a vulnerable time in their life.

“Our family trusted that Bupa would deliver what they promised and are required under law to provide. Our experience was soul destroying.

“I hope this class action serves to ensure no other resident has to experience the poor care my dad endured.”

The class action is seeking to recover damages for breach of contract and for breaches of the guarantees owed to consumers under the Australian Consumer Law.

Business News Australia has contacted Bupa Aged Care Australia for comment.

Echo Law’s legal action is being supported by Australian litigation funder CASL.