PRIVATE medical group Bupa said its profits remained healthy last year, despite suffering in the UK, where unemployment drove a 5% slip in customer numbers.

Bupa saw its UK surplus, which also includes US long-term condition specialist Health Dialogue, shrink to £16.8m, from £39.8m a year earlier, on broadly flat revenues of £2.1bn in the year to December 31.

But overall the group said pre-tax profits – which are all re-invested back into the business – soared 117% to £416.5m, after the firm bounced back from 2008’s credit crunch driven impairments and losses.

On an underlying basis, profits grew 4% to £428.2m as revenues improved 17% to £6.9bn, helped by acquisitions, organic growth and currency movements.

The healthcare firm’s UK arm provides services including health insurance, home treatment and hospital care. It has a health assessment centre in Rodney Street, Liverpool.

It said the recessionary climate and rising unemployment had taken its toll on the division in the year, with the slump in customer numbers driven mainly by contracting payrolls.

The cost of claims also increased in the year as medical prices rose, with the cost of cancer treatments particularly affected as a new generation of cancer drugs have seen costs rise 40% over five years.

Bupa said a “significant emphasis has been placed on customer retention” and extending networks to improve services for cataract treatment and physiotherapy.

It also said it had secured contracts with several multinational companies, which will add around 100,000 new customers in 2010. The UK Health and Wellbeing division launched a new computer system which it said would help it become more efficient and more responsive to customers.