Utility procurement and compliance built around clinical baseload and CQC continuity.
Independent consultancy for dental practices, GP surgeries, primary care groups and small clinical estates. Autoclaves, compressors, X-ray suites and HTM 04-01 water hygiene regimes drive a baseload your generic comparison tool was not built to price. We sit on your side of the table.
Primary care premises carry a utility profile that small-business comparison tools routinely misprice. Electricity demand carries a clinical baseload that no general SME shares: vaccine and specimen refrigeration, dental compressors and suction plant cycling continuously, autoclave warm-up and decontamination cycles, X-ray and CBCT standby, and mandatory daily flushing routines under HTM 04-01 water safety regimes. Water consumption is driven by hand hygiene, dental unit waterline management, autoclave reservoir refill and laboratory rinse — all of which sit materially above a typical small office\'s consumption per square metre.
Our role as an independent UK utility consultancy is to take that complexity off the practice manager and the clinical lead. 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 record of every meter and SPID for the practice. We do not present ourselves as a CQC consultancy, an HTM 04-01 advisor or a clinical engineering specialist — those remain your in-house or specialist responsibilities. We sit alongside them.
Common issues we see in primary care premises
- Microbusiness status not declared to suppliers, suppressing access to the protections that licence conditions require to be applied.
- Rollover contracts taking effect on the original anniversary with no compliant pre-renewal notification window served.
- Clinical equipment baseload (autoclaves, compressors, refrigeration) priced into contracts at standard small-office consumption assumptions.
- HTM 04-01 driven water consumption challenged by the wholesaler as anomalous high use, without engineering reconciliation.
- Surface-water drainage charges set against site plans that pre-date the last car-park or extension works.
- Priority Services Register notices logged with one supplier but never replicated across the rest of the utility stack.
What we look at on a typical practice or surgery audit
The audit is free and runs against twelve months of invoices and a current supply schedule. 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.
- 02Microbusiness status test against the three Ofgem thresholds, with documented entitlement to back-billing and renewal-window protections.
- 03Check for any deemed, out-of-contract or rollover unit rate against current market benchmarks for comparable primary care profiles.
- 04Pre-renewal notification check: written notice on file from the supplier between 49 and 1 days before the rollover anniversary.
- 05Clinical baseload reconciliation: overnight half-hourly floor (where data is available) against engineered baseload of clinical equipment.
- 06Standing charge and capacity review against the realistic demand of the practice, identifying over-allocated kVA where applicable.
- 07Water and effluent: SPID validation, consumption reconciliation against HTM 04-01 driven flushing and disinfection regimes.
- 08Surface-water drainage area validated against current site plan including car-park and extension reconfigurations.
- 09CCL declaration and VAT certificate alignment per meter.
- 10Commission disclosure: confirmation in writing of any TPI commission earned on the incumbent contract.
Procurement considerations specific to primary care
Microbusiness status is the single most important variable for most single-site practices and surgeries. It is not a label the supplier volunteers; it is a status the customer asserts and the supplier is required to honour. Where the practice qualifies, the supplier must provide written contract-end notification between 49 and 1 days before the renewal date, must not impose rollover terms in breach of the Standard Licence Conditions, and is bound by the back-billing limits on historical underbilling. We assert the status formally on day one of every engagement.
Demand profile is the second variable. Clinical baseload is materially higher than a generic SME assumption, and a contract priced from an annualised AQ that does not reflect the true overnight floor is being overpaid on standing and unit elements both. We tender with a real consumption schedule, take fresh meter reads where the historical record has been estimated, and where the practice qualifies for half-hourly metering — most do not — we model the implication carefully before triggering the conversion.
REGO-backed renewable supply is increasingly a procurement consideration, particularly where the practice is a member of a wider primary care network with sustainability commitments under the NHS Net Zero programme. We model the REGO premium honestly and only recommend it where the practice has a genuine reporting need; otherwise, conventional supply with full unit-rate transparency is usually the right answer.
Regulations that hit primary care utility files hardest
Microbusiness protections
Ofgem rules give microbusinesses extended back-billing protection, written renewal-window notification, and an Energy Ombudsman escalation path. Most single-site practices and surgeries qualify on at least one of the three thresholds.
Ofgem Standard Licence Conditions (back-billing)
Twelve-month back-billing protection on micro-business and domestic-style supplies. Frequently misapplied by suppliers in primary care because the customer status was never asserted.
HTM 04-01 (operational interaction only)
Water safety regime in healthcare premises. Drives legitimate hygiene-related water consumption that wholesalers may otherwise flag as anomalous. We reconcile billing against engineering rationale; we do not advise on the regime itself.
CQC continuity expectations
Continuity-of-service expectations include reasonable contingency for utility disruption. The procurement file supports the continuity plan via PSR registration and reliable supplier emergency processes.
Climate Change Levy
Applied to non-domestic energy supply at the standard rate unless reduced-rate or exempt categories apply. Worth checking the VAT certificate at every meter, particularly after a refit or change of premises use.
Practice manager 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 practice audit- You very probably do, on at least one of the three Ofgem definitions. A microbusiness is any one of: fewer than ten employees with annual turnover or balance sheet under €2m; annual electricity use under 100,000 kWh; or annual gas use under 293,000 kWh. Most single-site dental practices and GP surgeries fall under at least the headcount and energy-use thresholds, and many fall under all three. Microbusiness status carries practical protections — extended back-billing limits, written contract-end notifications between 49 and 1 days before renewal, and the right to escalate disputes to the Energy Ombudsman after eight weeks. Many small primary care operators do not realise the protections apply to them; suppliers do not always volunteer the information.
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.