The Mystery of Bupa

I tried to contact @Bupa a week ago with a very simple question – “If an NHS hospital does not have a spare bed available is it possible to use BUPA to get a private one?”

I have never experienced such a complete service failure in my life.

I can only describe @bupa in metaphor.

Imagine someone says that you can borrow their car in an emergency.

The emergency occurs and you go borrow the car. But it turns out that it’s just a drawing of a car. In crayon. On tissue paper. And it just rips when you touch it.

Getting to the car involves choosing between two opaquely different @bupa apps, filling in a long series of transactional questions and then a day later being asked to call.

Calls are “answered” by a very poorly designed IVR tree system.

The IVR system jumps between keypad and voice data entry without warning and the voice recognition system is shockingly low accuracy.

Eventually the line goes quiet. So quiet you assume you have been cut off.

Literally moments before I hung up a man who sounded a lot like John Shuttleworth answered the phone. I had to repeat my simple question to “John”, oof. Whereupon he said that a question of such complexity would have to go to “the nurses”.

I have no idea who the “nurses” were but he spoke of them with the same reverence as “The Three Mothers” in the films of Dario Argento. Sadly it was a bank holiday in the land of the nurses (no, me neither) so he had no idea when they would be available.

In the meantime he had looked at my policy and was I aware that I could claim for incidental expenses from my NHS cancer treatment. “Like biscuits?” I asked, wondering what Mater Tenebrarum would make of all this. “Exactly.” He would email me the form.

Reader, that was over a week ago. No form has appeared nor has Mater Tenebrarum been in touch.

So my question is “Is @bupa just some kind of dadaesque prank?” because I cannot see what if any service they actually offer.

And £2,500 a year is a lot for a prank.