BUPA UK: Managing Change in the UK Health and Social Care Sector

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Executive Summary

This report examines BUPA UK, a leading healthcare provider, focusing on its mission to help people live longer, healthier, and happier lives. Some of the challenges for BUPA as an organisation operating within the UK Health and Social Care are; changes in the regulatory environment, technologies in health, patient affairs and the workforce. Some of these trends were already ex force in the health sector and compounded by the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic which has forced BUPA to transform both at the corporate and operational levels.

Concerning change drivers, the report discusses and evaluates digital disruption, changes in expectations of the patient population, and regulation in the context of BUPA. It also considers relevant planned and unplanned changes in the analysis of the organisation to identify BUPA’s performance and competitive advantage. To undertake the analysis of the strategic and operational responses to these changes, Kotter’s 8-Step Process, Lewin’s Change Management Model, and other change management theories are examined.

The following summarises the threats and challenges from the literature: Top managerial resistance, sub-managerial resistance, missed/greater opportunities for growth, the impact of the change initiative and failure of the change initiative. This paper explores the reasons for resistance to change and suggests understanding the sources of resistance to develop specific change management tactics to counter it by promoting communication, staff development, and increasing stakeholder involvement.

The recommendations of this report therefore support Kotter’s 8-Step Process due to its effectiveness in the management of long-term change within organisations such as BUPA. An effective toolkit for change management is presented, from activities timeline and employees’ communication plan to training activities and indicators of change management effectiveness. These recommendations were given to help BUPA to have a healthier stand in the current competitive healthcare market and try to meet the new er version of patient requirements.

Table of Figures

Introduction

This introduction gives a brief overview of the concept of the health and social care sector in the UK one of the most important areas for society. It primarily covers some of the demographic fundamental needs and needs; they include health care needs meaning physical health, mental health, and social needs of the elderly and the disabled. Another major participant, BUPA UK is providing healthcare services which include insurance, homes, clinics, etc. BUPA was founded in 1947 and to date, the organisation is focused and renowned in health and social care provider’s fields, as it seeks to support people to gain longer and happier lives.

From its establishment up to the time of writing this report, the BUPA has had no shareholders which envisages that every profit procured is invested in enhancing the services being offered. This also means that through the operationalization of knowledge management, BUPA is in a position to constantly innovate ready and respond to new changes within the healthcare sector influenced by; Technology and Patients. In the last few years, due to increasing demand for remote, digital healthcare, BUPA has adopted online appointments.

Notably, some of the changes are always hard to manage within the health and social care work setting. Opportunities and threats surround BUPA, like the rest of the organisations, as it seeks to vent in a saturated market. This assignment looks at the changes that BUPA has undertaken, involving how these changes occur, changes management, the change resistance and how the resistance is tackled. I, therefore, intended this paper to offer a clear understanding of how organisations can manage change in the changing environment of UK health and social care through analysing BUPA’s change management approaches.

The nature and analysis of changes that have recently affected the BUPA UK Organisation can be classified into internal and external forces. COVID-19 was one of the key enactments: the need to increase the rate of transition to a new model of delivering health services and learning to pay more attention to telemedicine through digital means.

Analysis of Context

a. Brief Description of BUPA UK

BUPA UK is one of the leading health and social care service providers in the United Kingdom. Established in 1947, BUPA has developed a strong reputation for delivering quality healthcare services. Organisation’s services include private healthcare, health insurance, care homes, dental facilities, and health clinics. With no shareholders to answer to, BUPA reinvests all its profits back into the business, allowing it to consistently improve the services it offers to its customers. BUPA’s mission is simple: to add years to people’s lives, quality to these years, and happiness to those years (Matei, 2018).

Figure 1: BUPA LOGO

(Source: https://healthcareandprotection.com, 2022)

The company operates across the UK, catering to both individual patients and businesses seeking healthcare benefits for their employees. Its commitment to improving patient care and adapting to changing healthcare needs has positioned BUPA as a key player in the UK’s private healthcare sector. Over the years, BUPA has focused on introducing innovative health solutions and expanding its reach to meet the growing demand for healthcare services.

b. Recent Changes and Their Impact on Performance

In recent years, BUPA UK has undergone significant changes, particularly in response to external pressures such as the COVID-19 pandemic, evolving patient expectations, and technological advancements. The change that is perhaps most obvious is the growth in demand for telemedicine services. COVID-19 made possible the delivery of health services from a distance, patients preferred virtual visits to physical ones. In response to this shift, BUPA introduced digital health services, including telemedicine and virtual consultations, enabling patients to access healthcare professionals remotely (Papanicolas et al., 2019).

This change has had a notable impact on BUPA’s performance. By embracing digital health, BUPA has not only managed to remain competitive in the private healthcare sector but also strengthened its reputation as a forward-thinking healthcare provider. The availability of telemedicine services has allowed BUPA to meet the needs of patients who are unable or unwilling to visit healthcare facilities in person.

Figure 2: Bupa employees

(Source: https://www.mytribeinsurance.co.uk, 2024)

c. Strategic and Operational Drivers of Change

Several strategic and operational drivers have influenced the changes at BUPA UK, with the COVID-19 pandemic being one of the most significant. The pandemic accelerated the shift especially in the delivery of health services since these were among the areas most affected by this virus. The use of face-to-face appointments thus became impracticable through the implementation of lockdown, social distancing, and other forms of restrictions and this pressurised BUPA to embrace telemedicine and other digital solutions in the management of appointments than initially envisioned.

Outside the COVID-19 crisis, technology is emerging as one of the most important drivers of strategy in BUPA. There is the usage of artificial intelligence in diagnosis, health wearables, and health analytics all of which are changing how BUPA goes about the health business. Wearable devices and AI play an important role in easier tracking of a patient’s health and early detection of any problem (Mason et al., 2019).

Another factor influencing BUPA's strategic management is regulatory change processes: BUPA is forced to act in response to them. There is a stronger emphasis on new regulations and requirements including patient data privacy when it comes to digital technologies in the organisation. As organisations aim at enhancing the protection of health data it becomes critical for BUPA to meet the requirements of the law such as the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).

d. Planned and Unplanned Change

BUPA has experienced both planned and unplanned changes in recent years. Planned changes include the gradual integration of new technologies, such as AI and wearable health devices, as well as the expansion of its mental health services. Such changes are the ongoing realisation of BUPA’s business model plan to continue to progress in the vanguard of healthcare provision while responding to patients’ needs.

On the other hand, the pandemic brought further innovations that were completely unexpected and therefore put BUPA under pressure to respond well to them. Probably the most significant aspect of organisational flexibility was the unexpected conversion of the organisation to a provider of remote healthcare services during the lockdowns (Blockley et al., 2022).

However, some theories can be used to explain how BUPA managed these changes for instance Lewin’s Change Management Model. This theory by Lewin, made up of four stages, namely unfreezing, changing, and refreezing is useful in understanding how BUPA shifted from traditional face-to-face care to a more geometric-oriented approach.

Evaluation of Change Management Approaches

a. Kotter’s 8-Step Change Model and Lewin’s Change Management Model

Two popular change management models that can be applied to BUPA’s experience are Kotter’s 8-Step Change Model and Lewin’s Change Management Model. Both models explain how change can be managed in different ways, to some extent, the problems that BUPA encountered before and after the COVID-19 pandemic.

Kotter’s 8-Step Change Model is a sequential framework based on a process that needs to be followed to make change happen in an organisation. The first element of Kotter’s model has generated a sense of urgency. For BUPA, the pandemic played this role as the change in healthcare patterns meant that fast action was required. The second one calls for the construction of a guiding coalition, which comprises individuals for a change initiative (Laig and Abocejo, 2021).

The third and fourth activities of the model are vision and strategy development and organisational communication of the vision. At that time, the vision of BUPA was to further enhance its healthcare services through digital means while also remaining believable that patients would also be able to seek treatment through telecommunications. Following this, the leadership then required translating this vision to all departments to ensure all were aware of the new strategy and the changes it would bring for them (Miller, 2019).

The final stages of the change management model according to Kotter are the last in the sequence, which is all about integrating and institutionalising change. In the context of BUPA, the transition meant making sure that digital healthcare embedded itself within their services offer, constantly improving these new modalities, and institutionalising the change.

In contrast, Lewin’s Change Management Model is much simpler, consisting of just three stages: These are identified to be the major phases of managing organisational change, which include the unfreezing, change and refreezing phases.

The changing phase, for BUPA, involved implementing digital health platforms, including virtual consultations, telemedicine, and remote patient monitoring. This stage is where the actual transition happens, and it can often be a period of uncertainty as staff and patients adapt to new systems.

b. Benefits and Drawbacks of Each Model

Kotter’s 8-Step Change Model is highly structured, which can be a benefit for large organisations like BUPA. This way, planned change outlines every detail in that implementing change will be done efficiently without any loopholes. The leadership, employee engagement and communication all contribute to promoting work towards a shared vision by all divisions within the organisation.

However, the only drawback I see is that applying Kotter’s eight-step model takes time. Since every step must be processed successively, it means that should a prompt response be needed as was the case during the COVID-19 outbreak, the process will be greatly slowed down. Further, the model could be tight, perhaps not providing quite enough space for kind of loosening or for handling some emergent problems which are inherent in the approach.

Lewin’s Change Management Model, on the other hand, has fewer processes and is easy to adopt on the change management process. Its linear plan is characterised by three basic steps – this makes it suitable to implement small, incremental changes. From the perspective of BUPA, the very straightforwardness of the model might be a plus in so far as it simplifies the process of embedding digital change when going into a new more limited scale of technologies or services (Hussain et al., 2018).

c. Recommended Model

For a large organisation like BUPA, which had to implement significant changes across its entire operation, Kotter’s 8-Step Change Model is the better choice. While traditional change management is less detailed and structured it is more appropriate to the extent of the changes that BUPA had to make. Telemedicine and remote consultations which were adopted for effective services needed organisational change as well as impacted the technical change in the use of technology (Haas et al., 2020).

Kotter’s model is effective in making leadership fully involved, employee interest motivated and the communication is well enhanced. As with establishing plenty of small wins, it also aids the management in coming up with a change-identification process, which motivates staff during change. Although the model may take more time the implement, the detailed structure helps to avoid some issues in the changing process, for example, the need for employee training, the protection of patient data, or the lack of security for the data (Putuasduki and Putri, 2024).

Addressing Resistance to Change

a. Organisational and Individual Resistance

During its digital transformation, BUPA encountered resistance on both organisational and individual levels.

At the organisational level, resistance mainly came from staff who had been accustomed to traditional methods of patient care. The perceived threat was that the use of fresh applications and technology in the business environment was likely to downplay the value of their services or even render some of the existing tasks irrelevant. Also, there was apprehension as pertains; to cost implications which may be accrued in incorporating new digital platforms like virtual consultations. Another principal organisational issue identified in this study was the risks of cyber threats involved in the practice of managing patient information electronically, which caused concerns about data privacy (Mumby et al., 2017).

At a personal level, employee and patient resistance was evident. Some respondents complained about the speed of transition and the fact that most of the work is done through technology, which is still not fully grasped by some workers. This made them worry about how suitably they could adapt to such change especially when it occurs frequently. Likewise, some patients allowed convenience sacrifice, while others reported being uncomfortable with technology and found virtual consultations challenging when they were older.

b. Strategies to Overcome Resistance

To effectively address organisational resistance, BUPA can introduce comprehensive training programmes for staff. These programmes should focus on teaching employees how to use the new digital systems effectively and confidently. This training can be conducted according to the level of technological literacy within an organisation so that everyone is not left out. Stakeholders will be more comfortable with the change because the information technology staff will offer practical experience and continued assistance with the implementation upon being introduced to the change. Assigning these changes, one should also explain how the utilisation of technology is beneficial for the outcome and for minimising workload concerning patients and doctors, correspondingly (Wiederhold, 2017).

Finally for individual resistance especially from the patients, BUPA must come with extra measures of encouragement and direction for them to embrace the virtual health platforms. For example, videos or a list of instructions might be helpful for patients while going through the digital consultation. Besides, BUPA could offer such services that would be a blend of both online and personal services for patients. This would allow individuals not very familiar with technology to get clinical services while patients who prefer virtual services can continue to do so. Offering options will enable patients to shift gradually affording a way of avoiding grumbling and discomfort whenever there is a change.

c. Evaluating the Effectiveness of Proposed Strategies

The proposed strategies are likely to be effective because they prioritise education, support, and clear communication. In this way, the existing organisational resistance can be reduced on the BUPA side because the staff would be trained with the acquired knowledge and skills required for their positions through the training programmes. Ongoing training and support will also help prevent new technologies from overwhelming staff and help them prepare for any future changes.

For the general concept of resistance, particularly from the patients, offering tutorials and launching the concept of hybrid services is a clear indicator that BUPA is taking their complaints seriously and coming up with solutions that meet their needs without imposing on their discontentment. Patients can gradually become accustomed to the digital services BUPA proposes, without ever being pushed into situations they are uncomfortable with (Powell et al., 2019).

The effectiveness of the above strategies, however, will depend on how well BUPA is willing to undertake regular feedback from the employees and patients. It is advisable to organise constant meetings and fill out occasional questionnaires to reveal further needs and problems.

Development of a Change Management Plan

a. Comprehensive Change Management Plan

Phase	Key Actions	Timeline	Responsible	Performance Metrics
1. Preparation (Unfreeze)	- Communicate urgency and benefits of digital transformation.	1-2 months	Senior Management & HR	- Stakeholder engagement levels
	- Conduct stakeholder meetings to gather input.			- Meeting feedback quality
2. Planning	- Develop a detailed roadmap for digital health integration.	1-2 months	Project Manager & IT Team	- Completion of project roadmap
	- Identify required resources (tech, staff).			- Resource allocation completed
3. Communication Strategy	- Create communication channels (emails, workshops, etc.).	Ongoing (across all phases)	Communications Team	- Communication effectiveness surveys
	- Communicate vision to staff and patients.			- Frequency of updates (Cameron and Green, 2019)
4. Training & Support	- Provide training sessions for staff on new digital tools.	3-4 months	HR & IT Training Team	- Number of staff trained
	- Offer support for patients using virtual care.			- Patient satisfaction with digital tools
5. Implementation (Change)	- Launch digital health services.	3-6 months	IT Team & Health Operations Team	- Adoption rate of digital services
	- Monitor initial feedback and troubleshoot issues.			- Early user feedback
6. Address Resistance	- Identify areas of resistance (staff/patients).	1-2 months (and ongoing)	Change Management Team	- Decrease in resistance metrics
	- Provide tailored solutions to overcome resistance.			- Increase in employee engagement
7. Performance Measurement	- Track key performance indicators (KPIs) like user satisfaction, service efficiency, etc.	Ongoing (after implementation)	Operations Team	- KPI improvement
				- Service delivery times
				- Patient feedback
8. Reinforcement (Refreeze)	- Celebrate successes and reward staff.	6-12 months	Senior Management	- Long-term integration of digital tools
	- Ensure changes are embedded in daily operations.			- Sustained performance

b. Timeline

Phase	Duration	Key Actions
Phase 1: Preparation	0-3 months	- Communicate the vision for change.
		- Hold meetings with staff and stakeholders.
		- Initial staff training on digital tools.
Phase 2: Implementation	3-6 months	- Roll out digital health services to patients.
		- Implement hybrid care models (in-person and virtual).
Phase 3: Evaluation	6-12 months	- Evaluate the impact of digital health services.
		- Collect patient and staff feedback.
		- Adjust processes based on feedback.

c. Key Communication Strategies

For the success of the change initiatives of the BUPA there should be clarity of communication and the communication process should be continuous. For new staff, patients and stakeholders, BUPA should engage them via email, newsletters or through post virtual meetings. Ideas may be discussed and resolved through feedback sessions to enhance trust and receive opinions from all (Hyland-Wood et al., 2021).

d. Training and Development:

Employees will have to be trained because of changes in technology and new ways of treating patients, and dealing with or using electronic tools. First drama or orientation sessions should cover the basic usage of applications, later followed by recurrent recourses. This will make the staff assured when it comes to embracing new technologies, as well as offer quality care. Another reason for extending development opportunities is the promotion of employee retention to keep them motivated and increase patient satisfaction.

e. Performance Measurement Metrics:

To evaluate the impact and effectiveness of the change at BUPA, the following changes should be measured in KPI; The patient scores, employee engagement score, and the rate of service delivery. Also, how many virtual consultations are done and the quality of patient demography can also be monitored through digital media. This data will enable BUPA to take the necessary action when making changes to its change management plan when necessary (Maestrini et al., 2017).

Conclusion and Recommendations

In conclusion, BUPA UK is undergoing significant changes due to technological advancements and external factors like the COVID-19 pandemic. These changes present threats that make it difficult to expand or sustain effective care delivery while also presenting opportunities to improve patient care and remain relevant in a newly competitive environment. Finally, the application of managing these transitions is best guided by Kotter’s 8-Step Change Model as there is a systemic process that is easy to follow and allows other key aspects in the organisation to have direct input in the change process.

Implementing these changes will not be without challenges, due to this, the following training, communication and support will be vital to BUPA staff and patients. Providing top-down training on new digital tools will also downplay resistance and surge confidence in adopting technology. It will be crucial to always stay open and consistently share all the key information so that every worker will be aware of the benefits that the changes bring and can air their views when they have some worries. Further, constant backing of the processes by both the staff and patients will also go a long way in enthroning more credulity in the new installations.

If these steps, and more importantly a clear and transparent change management plan are adhered to a company like BUPA can successfully traverse this period of change for forthcoming growth that will enable proper healthcare delivery in the future.

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