Utility procurement and compliance built around 24/7 residential care.
Independent consultancy for residential care groups, nursing homes and supported living providers. Heating that cannot be turned down, residents on the Priority Services Register, CQC continuity expectations and rising water charges all sit on top of an energy market that punishes inattention. We sit on your side of the table.
Care providers carry a utility profile that almost no other sector replicates. Gas demand for space heating and domestic hot water runs at high baseload across autumn, winter and spring; electricity demand never drops to a true overnight minimum because nurse-call systems, hoists, medical fridges, corridor lighting and laundries continue around the clock. Water consumption per resident is materially above general commercial benchmarks once en-suite bathing, laundry, kitchen and housekeeping use are aggregated. Each of these inputs is metered, billed and contracted separately, and each carries its own compliance touchpoints.
Our role as an independent UK utility consultancy is to take that complexity off the registered manager and finance director. We audit the contracts you already hold, recover overcharges where they exist, tender renewals across the whole UK B2B market with transparent commission disclosure, and keep one consolidated record of every meter, MPAN, MPRN and SPID across the group. We do not hold ourselves out as a CQC consultancy, a regulated water hygiene advisor or an estates contractor — those remain your in-house or specialist responsibilities. We sit alongside them.
Common issues we see in care home estates
- Out-of-contract or deemed gas supply following a CQC change of registered provider, with no formal change-of-tenancy lodged.
- Heating boilers oversized for current occupancy yet still on a half-hourly tariff designed for the previous use class.
- Priority Services Register notices logged at site level for one utility but never replicated across the other two.
- Water bills carrying surface-water drainage charges for car parks and gardens that have since been resurfaced or built on.
- On-site laundries discharging clinical waste effluent without a current Section 118 trade effluent consent on file.
- Group portfolios renewing site-by-site at twelve different dates, losing aggregation discount and triggering rolling deemed periods.
What we look at on a typical care home audit
The audit is free and runs against one bill or one portfolio extract. Findings are returned in writing, typically within 48 working hours.
- 01Validation of every MPAN, MPRN and SPID against the central industry database for the registered occupier and start date.
- 02Check for any deemed, out-of-contract or rollover unit rate against current market benchmarks for comparable HH and NHH profiles.
- 03Review of standing charges, capacity charges and DUoS bands for over-allocation against actual demand.
- 04Trade effluent: presence and currency of consent, Mogden formula application versus flat sewerage rate.
- 05Surface-water drainage: confirmation of impermeable area against current site plan or aerial survey.
- 06Priority Services Register: written notice on file with every supplier and, where applicable, network operator.
- 07CCL exemption or reduced rate eligibility check (residential charitable use can attract a 5% reduced VAT rate on qualifying supply).
- 08Review of last twelve months of invoices for unit-rate, standing-charge or estimated-read errors against contract.
- 09Renewal calendar harmonisation across the group with proposed co-termination dates.
- 10Commission disclosure: confirmation in writing of any TPI commission earned on the incumbent contract.
Procurement considerations specific to care
Demand profile is the single most important variable. Care homes run a flatter load curve than almost any other commercial customer — there is no overnight shutdown and no weekend fall-off. That actually plays well into fixed pricing on longer terms, because suppliers price predictability favourably; we frequently find that 36-month or 48-month fixed contracts beat 12-month rolling on both unit rate and standing charge for genuinely 24/7 sites.
Group aggregation works in this sector when the renewal calendar is harmonised first. We will often recommend a deliberately short bridging contract on one or two outlying meters in order to bring everything onto a single anniversary, then tender the consolidated portfolio at full volume. Whole- of-market procurement across all licensed B2B suppliers is the standard; we do not pre-filter to a panel.
REGO-backed supply is increasingly a procurement requirement rather than a preference, particularly where any portion of your beds are filled through NHS continuing healthcare or local authority dynamic purchasing systems with Net Zero clauses. We will model the REGO premium honestly and only recommend it where the audit trail is robust enough to use in your own ESG reporting.
Regulations that hit care home utility files hardest
Ofgem Standard Licence Conditions (back-billing)
Twelve-month back-billing protection on micro-business and domestic-style supplies. Care homes frequently sit in a hybrid microbusiness profile and the rules are routinely misapplied by suppliers.
Priority Services Register
Network-level register that records premises with vulnerable occupants. Notices must be served to every supplier and, where relevant, to the DNO and water wholesaler. The TPI Code of Practice principles include passing this information through accurately.
Water Industry Act 1991, Section 118
Trade effluent consent regime. On-site laundries handling clinical or incontinence material almost always fall within scope, and discharge composition affects the Mogden formula billing rate.
Climate Change Levy
Applied to most non-domestic energy supply. Genuinely residential care homes can fall within reduced-rate or exempt categories if the supply is correctly classified — we check the VAT certificate against the meter.
Deemed contract regime
Where a supply transfers without a fresh contract (most commonly on home acquisitions), suppliers default to deemed rates. These rates are not capped in the non-domestic market and are routinely well above tendered prices.
Care provider questions, answered straight.
We are an independent UK utility consultancy aligned with the Ofgem TPI Code of Practice principles. Whole-of-market procurement, transparent commission disclosure, no offshore subcontracting.
Request a portfolio audit- The PSR is operated at the network level for domestic and microbusiness consumers, but care providers should still flag vulnerable-resident operations to gas, electricity and water suppliers in writing. We help you draft the standing notice, confirm it has been logged against every meter MPAN, MPRN and SPID, and we keep the record current when residents, managers or sites change. This does not change your tariff, but it materially affects how outages and interruptions are prioritised.
Send us one bill. We'll send back every overcharge — and the cheapest legitimate replacement.
Whether you run a Mayfair restaurant group or rent a flat in Salford, the audit is the same and the fee is the same: nothing, unless we save you money.