Taking a closer look at the strange and complex beast that is Bupa, may be intimidating, but it’s always worthwhile. With sales of almost £10bn a year, Bupa is larger than almost half the FTSE 100. In the siloed and slow-moving world of healthcare services, the results of this leviathan, present an opportunity to compare the performance of one company across countries, continents, sectors and sub-sectors.

The most striking figures are the 33% customer growth experienced by Bupa Arabia, 17% growth in sales, profits and customers across Spain and Lat-Am, and a 10% fall in UK profits. Then you have funding deficits of £1.1bn in the UK care industry, quoted by the CEO Stuart Fletcher. And growth of 7% at CER in the business as a whole – although reduced to only 3% by the appreciation of the Pound.

The UK market is troubling, but Bupa know that the government has to support the care industry. In fact, money continues to flood into the sector through property investors, and shifts to homecare have much been exaggerated. If the government wants to cut costs in the NHS it is better off supporting the care industry, and taking patients out of expensive hospitals.

What hope for the long-suffering UK insurance sector? Without radical shifts in government policy – bringing in co-payment for example – there are limited options for growth. The corporate market, as yet under-exploited, is one. The other: tapping into the overlapping trends of increasing health consciousness and a creaking NHS. New products like Bupa Fundamental and Bupa Boost are designed for this purpose.

So what’s the big picture? Well look at where Bupa is making bold acquisitions: Chile, Poland and India – through an increased stake in its Max JV. This is no surprise when you consider that insurance growth of 15% is expected across Emerging Asia, although admittedly from a low base, and private healthcare is growing in double figures in Poland.

In developed markets, they have been more cautious and focused on the outpatient sector. You might say they are going for a form of pragmatic vertical integration: control the patient journey through diagnostics and outpatient services, and leave the messy and expensive in-patient care to the specialists.