Bupa UK underlying profit up 25%

Bupa Health Funding saw growth in its SME business and the report said there were "early signs of growth in our corporate businesses" while warning of tough conditions in private medical insurance.

Cost savings of £30m were made during 2014 with changes to back office processes, procurement and streamlining sales, as well as energy saving measures.

Bupa UK saw revenue increase by 5% to £2.7bn while the number of customers increased by 3% to 4m across the various sectors of Bupa.

In 2014 Bupa signed a long-term agreement with Spire agreeing prices until 2021, and Bupa UK has said it will seek similar deals with other hospital providers.

The annual results report said 2015 will see the expansion of Bupa's dental services, dementia care services, new products services and online tools as well as efforts to encourage customers to do more for their health and wellbeing.

Richard Bowden, managing director at Bupa UK said: "We are proud to have delivered a good set of results in the UK despite tough trading conditions." 

Bowden added: "These results will support our plans to continue to invest substantially over the next three years, developing innovative products and services to address some of the UK's toughest healthcare challenges.

"However, we still have a long way to go. We know customers want private healthcare to be more transparent and affordable and reform across the whole sector is needed to deliver this.

"The agreements we have reached with some hospital groups have ensured that prices they charge us for treating our customers will not rise in 2015.

"This is a key factor in delivering lower premium increases and we will be looking to work with other providers in a similar way.

"Our corporate customers are already seeing the benefit. In 2014, over half of our renewing corporate customers had their premiums either reduced, or held level, meaning they have experienced some of the lowest premium increases on record."