Bupa to split health business in 'fundamental' shake-up The internal memo, which said the company was not intending to announce the restructure to the press, said the shake-up was aimed at simplifying the 3,000-strong health and well-being business. The memo outlined various leadership functions and new roles that have been created, although the company said some people could be "impacted" by the changes, suggesting some redundancies were on the cards. Paul Saper, chief executive of LCS International Consulting, a healthcare consultancy, said Mr Fletcher - who joined the business in March 2012 - was "like a breath of fresh air" giving Bupa a much-needed reorganisation to deal with market challenges. For too long, the company has been "wonderfully inefficient," he said, because staff - operating under the mutual model without the pressure from shareholders - were "risk averse" but paid "fat salaries." As a result, the industry has moved on with competition coming from new sources, such as private hospitals, or the NHS, which has "upped its game" in cutting waiting lists, reducing people's desire to take out private medical insurance, he said. However, Mr Saper said refocusing the health and wellbeing division was a bit of a "red herring" for the company, whose main challenges were centred around the future of care homes and private medical insurance. "Bupa needs a strategic review, to focus on the very serious strategic issues it faces," he said. Spilling blood at Bupa is proxy for the real reality that they have got to get to grips with the new market. Richard Bowden, managing director at Bupa UK, said in a statement: "We make no apology for continually looking for ways to ensure we provide affordable, high quality healthcare for the long term and ensure private healthcare remains accessible for our customers. We will be making a number of appointments to support this new structure. Some people may be personally impacted by these changes and where this is the case, we are talking to them individually. The changes will take effect on January 1.