I'd like to start with a story about a customer named Rhys.

For fifteen years, Rhys lived with chronic back pain.

Like many Australians, Rhys did everything he was supposed to do. He sought advice, tried treatments and followed recommendations. Yet despite years of effort, the pain remained.

Eventually, he found himself asking the same question many Australians ask when navigating our health system: 'What am I supposed to do next?'

Then one day, while carrying his infant daughter, Rhys collapsed. Fortunately, she wasn't hurt.

But the moment mattered. Because it wasn’t just about the pain – it was about what the pain had taken. His sense of control. His ability to be present as a father, without fear.

Rhys needed confidence that there was a clear path forward.

We often talk about access to healthcare, and it matters enormously. But one of the biggest challenges facing Australians is confidence - knowing where to go, what to do next and that somebody is helping guide them.

Australia has one of the best healthcare systems in the world. But for many people, the experience of navigating it can still feel confusing and uncertain. You receive a diagnosis, a referral or a set of test results and suddenly you're faced with a series of decisions. What happens next? How urgently do I need to act? What will it cost? And what are my options?

Too often we ask people at their most vulnerable to coordinate their own care. And that uncertainty has consequences. People delay seeking help. They disengage.

That is why the opportunity in front of us is not just improving access. It is improving confidence.

In many ways, navigating healthcare today can feel like trying to find your way through a new city using an old street directory. You can eventually get where you need to go, but it is slow, stressful and there is always a lingering uncertainty about whether you're heading in the right direction.

Most of us wouldn't travel that way today. We use GPS. Not because it drives the car, but because it helps us understand our options, adjust when circumstances change and move forward with confidence.

That future rests on three things: connection, collaboration and care.

Those same principles shape how we think about Blua – our digital health experience designed to make it simple to access care, understand your options and take the next step.

• Blua connects people to the information and healthcare services available to them, whether face-to-face or virtual.
• Through strong collaboration with providers and industry partners, we’re making it easier to see what care is available and how to access it.
• And at every step, care remains central; helping people feel supported, informed and confident in their health decisions.

While still evolving, Blua is how Bupa is making it easier for customers to see and access the care available to them – bringing together a range of Bupa services and partner programs into one place, while better connecting people to the broader health system.

Today, that includes helping customers find relevant information, connect with healthcare providers, book virtual GP consultations and access support programs, while also making it easier to identify providers in Bupa’s Members First network to help reduce out-of-pocket costs.

Over time, Blua will become an even more personalised health companion helping people navigate increasingly complex health journeys with greater confidence while keeping them firmly in control of the decisions and choices that matter. Importantly, Blua is available to both Bupa customers and the broader Australian community, making trusted health support more accessible to everyone.

And, Blua is not about directing people into Bupa services.

For us, the future is about helping people navigate their individual healthcare journey with confidence to quickly access the right care and information available to them across the broader health system. Because trust in the system comes from understanding your options and knowing what to do next. 

And this brings me back to Rhys.

What changed for him wasn’t a single appointment or intervention, it was finally having his care connected.

Through Blua, Rhys was connected with MoreGoodDays, an evidence-based program combining physiotherapy, psychology and digital support – with more than 80 per cent of participants reporting significant improvements in back pain.^[1]

What struck me most about Rhys’ story wasn't that he hadn’t tried physiotherapy or digital tools before. It was that, for the first time, those elements were brought together into a coordinated, multidisciplinary approach to his care.

That’s what connected care looks like in practice. The physiotherapist, the psychologist and the digital support all worked together to provide continuity and guidance. Rhys had a pathway – and the confidence to follow it.

Last year more than 367,000 of our customers used a Blua service, and 230,000 people accessed online GP services through Blua Virtual Consults. Almost 70% of these appointments were resolved in the first consultation, with millions saved in out-of-pocket costs for customers.

Now, to be clear – nothing replaces the role of the ‘family medical home’: a patient’s regular GP as their trusted coordinator of care.

We also recognise that GPs are under increasing pressure, and access and affordability remain real challenges for many Australians.

What we’re seeing through Blua is the complementary role that virtual care can play – helping customers access timely support, particularly where traditional access points are constrained. More than 60% of Blua Virtual Consults are now taking place outside of business hours, demonstrating how these services can extend access when people need it most.

But it goes far beyond that. Blua is also starting to put more control in people’s hands – making it easier to take a more proactive role in their health, whether that’s initiating preventative checks, accessing support earlier, or building healthier habits over time.

This expanded choice is helping meet growing consumer expectations, while supporting better use of the health system overall.

The impact is threefold: improving patient experiences, supporting clinicians, and helping people connect to the care setting that best meets their needs – whether that’s a GP, a specialist, a hospital, a virtual appointment, or care at home.

What gives me confidence is what we're already seeing. More Australians are using services like Blua to access support earlier, navigate complexity and make more informed decisions about their health.

None of this can happen without collaboration.

No single organisation can solve the challenges facing healthcare alone. Not hospitals. Not clinicians. Not insurers. Not governments. Not technology companies.

Customers expect all of us to work together around them.

The challenge is that while customer expectations are changing, many parts of our health system are still designed around a different era of healthcare - built around episodes, institutions and locations, rather than journeys, continuity and outcomes.

In its early stages, Blua is showing us that better healthcare happens across a connected journey. It happens across primary care, specialist care, mental health support, hospital care, rehabilitation and recovery. It happens at home, in communities and through digital channels.

What I’ve seen consistently while working within the healthcare sector is that the best outcomes occur when organisations stop thinking about ownership of the patient journey and start thinking about stewardship of the patient experience.

This is how we build trust in the care the system provides.

Trust is becoming one of the most important currencies in healthcare – and it’s under pressure.

Australians paid more than $1.3 billion in out-of-pocket medical costs in 2024. Affordability is no longer just a financial issue; it is increasingly an access issue and a health outcome issue^[2].

Behind every one of those statistics is a person – a parent, a partner, a son or daughter. Perhaps someone we know, perhaps someone sitting around our own kitchen table.

Their decision could be about delaying treatment, it could be anxiety about paying a bill, they could be questioning whether they can afford to continue or simply trying to navigate the system while already dealing with the emotional burden of being unwell.

The stakes are high. If we fail to make healthcare easier to navigate, confidence will continue to decline. People will delay care. Conditions will become more complex. Costs will continue to rise. And trust in the system will come under increasing pressure.

This matters a lot to us and it’s why we believe we have responsibility not only to support our customers, but to help shape the future of a more connected healthcare system.

Yet our policy and funding settings do not always make it easy to deliver the kinds of experiences at scale that I’ve been talking about.

If private health is to remain trusted and relevant over the next decade, it cannot remain simply a financing mechanism. It must become better co-ordinated, more preventative and more customer led. If it does not evolve, participation, relevance and trust in the category will all come under growing pressure.

That means helping people stay healthier for longer, not simply paying claims after they become unwell.

It’s why we are advocating for a new phase of private health insurance reform.

Not reform for its own sake, but reform that helps create the system we see is essential for the future. One that is a stronger and more sustainable health system. We believe in reform that lifts participation, improves productivity and strengthens partnerships across the sector.

Because if we want more than 45% of Australians^[3] to continue choosing private health insurance, we need to ensure it delivers value, trust and experiences that feel relevant to the way people live, enhancing support for younger Australians and people of working age. Participation delivers measurable affordability – a 3-5% lift in participation equates to around 380,000 to 640,000 more Australians insured, spreading the cost and slowing premium growth^[4].

So, if we want the system to remain sustainable, we need to create greater flexibility for new models of care that improve outcomes. And we need to reduce unnecessary pressure on hospitals – to improve productivity. Without flexibility, and a modern way forward, the system will remain under stress despite better alternatives existing.

One of the clearest examples is Hospital in the Home.

It represents a different philosophy of care, one that starts with a simple question: what is best for the patient? Not, where has care traditionally been delivered? Supported by clinicians, enabled by technology and focused on outcomes rather than location.

Evidence shows that clinically appropriate care delivered at home can support faster recovery, improve productivity and achieve outcomes that are as good as, or better than, equivalent inpatient care. It can also reduce the cost of delivering care by between 18 and 45 per cent compared with equivalent inpatient treatment^[5].

Customers want this. Providers are demonstrating it can work. The challenge now is making it easier to scale.

The same principle sits behind programs like MoreGoodDays. Why wait until someone reaches surgery if earlier intervention may achieve a better health outcome? Why wait until somebody reaches crisis if multidisciplinary support can help sooner? Why organise care around settings when we can organise it around people?

These are questions about customer experience. They are questions about sustainability. They are questions about outcomes.

What gives me hope is that we do not need to invent the future. Many of these models already exist. Our challenge now is to create the policy settings that allow these models to scale. And that will require collaboration and partnership between providers, insurers, governments and everyone in this room.

Ultimately, this speech is not about technology. It is not about apps. And it is not even about health insurance.

It is about giving customers the confidence to take the first step. Confidence to know where to turn. And the reassurance that someone is helping connect the pieces. It is about the role all players in the system have to work together to be the stewards of the patient experience.

Rhys did not need somebody to make decisions for him. He needed to understand the options and pathways and the confidence to follow it.

Not more complexity. Not more fragmentation.

Because when people have certainty, they act earlier, outcomes improve and trust grows.

That is the opportunity in front of us. And that is why Bupa is committed to being more than a payer. We want to be a healthcare partner helping Australians navigate their health journey with greater confidence, helping co-ordinate care across the system and working alongside providers, governments and communities to build a stronger, more sustainable healthcare system for the future.

If we can achieve that together, we will do more than improve the experience of healthcare.

We will improve the health of Australians.

Thank you.

^{[1] MoreGoodDays® at home back pain program | Bupa
[2] Australian Prudential Regulation Authority (APRA) 2025, Quarterly private health insurance membership and benefits summary – December 2024, APRA, Sydney
[3] Australian Prudential Regulation Authority (APRA), Quarterly Private Health Insurance Membership and Benefits Summary – March 2026
[4] Australian Prudential Regulation Authority (APRA), Quarterly private health insurance membership and benefits summary – March 2026
[5] 20230523_PHA-Report_Reforming-out-of-hospital-care.pdf}

While I’m not an Optometrist myself, I have worked within Bupa Optical for 2.5 years (and 7+ at Bupa APAC) and have come to understand Optometry isn't merely about prescribing glasses or fitting contact lenses; it's about nurturing and revitalising healthy vision and lifestyles within communities, households and workplaces.

Imagine a world where blurry vision hinders learning in classrooms, where road accidents spike due to undiagnosed vision impairments, or where the elderly struggle needlessly with diminished eyesight. Optometrists are there at the frontline working to prevent these scenarios, ensuring that individuals of all ages can see clearly and live life to their full potential.

At Bupa Optical, we believe that everyone, regardless of where they live, deserves access to essential eye care services. Through partnerships with local and international organisations, we extend our reach to communities around the world, offering screenings, education, and support to those in need.

As part of our commitment to promoting eye health amongst communities in need, Bupa Optical Optometrists coordinate yearly trips to regional and remote communities around the Northern Territory to provide eye care. We also donated over 5,000 pairs of spectacles and sunglasses frames to Cambodia Vision last year along with $5 from every frame sold as part of a World Sight Day campaign.

While the work we do in the community is really important and uplifting, even more inspiring is the attitudes I have seen amongst our Optometrists in recent years to see their role in enhancing and protecting general health along with eye health.

This commitment across our business has seen us invest in new holistic preventative health programs such as our EyeInspect which uses high-tech retinal screening technology and a database of more than 10 million retinal scans to identify eye and non-eye health problems such as diabetes. If detected, they can then be discussed further with the customer and with a trusted medical professional.

I have spoken to a few of our Optometrists who have customers come back to them and tell them that they have literally saved their lives because of an eye test and early medical intervention… and that is really gratifying and to be honest, something that gets me up and going in the morning.

So today, let’s raise our glasses (you see what I did there!), to our amazing Optometrists in Australia and around the world!