(CNN) -- BUPA is an international health and care company with bases on three continents and more than eight million customers.
BUPA began as The British United Provident Association in 1947 to preserve freedom of choice in health care.
It believed that with a National Health Service being introduced a year later, there would still be a need for a complimentary service enabling people from all walks of life to afford the benefits of choice in where, when and by whom they were treated.
Led by the growing public demand for health care and a lack of quality private accommodation BUPA initiated the Nuffield Homes Charitable Trust - later renamed Nuffield Hospitals.
BUPA's biggest and original business is health insurance in the UK, both for individuals and corporations that want to look after the health of their employees. More than half of the UK's top companies are BUPA customers.
The company's UK care homes offer specialist care to residents who include the elderly, the mentally ill, young people with physical or learning disabilities and people with conditions such as Parkinson's and Huntington's diseases.
BUPA is a leading healthcare company in the UK, Spain, Australia, Ireland, Hong Kong, Thailand, Malta and Saudi Arabia. BUPA International supplies health cover to expatriates in over 180 countries.
Sanitas, the BUPA business in Spain, has one million insured customers who have access to a network of 18,000 medical professionals and 450 medical centers. E-mail to a friend 
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