Procurement
Procurement: spending more to save more
Chris Dean, founder and chief procurement officer of Procurement For Care, explains why, when care homes look to reduce costs, cutting corners on items such as cleaning products and laundry supplies could be a false economy
In social care, the pressure to do more with less has become the norm. Providers are expected to maintain high standards, meet complex regulations, and support stretched teams, all while managing tighter budgets year on year. As a procurement professional with over 20 years’ experience across hospitality and care, I have learned this simple truth: cutting cost is not the same as controlling cost. In fact, some of the best savings we have
helped providers realise have come from spending more. Not everywhere. Not blindly. But in the right places, with the right rationale. Because when you look at the full picture – not just the invoice line – you start to see where true value lives.
The price tag does not tell the full story It is easy to chase low prices. A cheaper dishwasher tablet. A value pack of gloves. A budget cleaning spray. But too often, the money saved upfront is lost further down
52
www.thecarehomeenvironment.com October 2025
the line – through waste, rework, damaged equipment, or frustrated staff. I visited a home recently where kitchen staff
were routinely washing water jugs twice. Not because they were overly cautious, but because the dishwasher tabs were not up to the job. It became habit. One extra wash per item, a few times a day, every day. The result? Higher energy use, wasted water, and lost time. We swapped in a professional-grade
tablet with built-in rinse aid and salt. No rewashing. One cycle, clean results, job done. Yes, the cost per tab was higher. But the cost per outcome was far lower. And that is what matters.
The money
saved upfront is lost further down the line
Laundry tells you everything you need to know Laundry is one of the most demanding areas of a care home. High soil levels, infection control requirements, sensitive skin considerations, and an endless turnaround leave no room for compromise. Yet too many providers are steered towards own-brand products sold as a cost-saving solution. On the surface they look cheaper, but they are rarely up to the job. You might pay three times the price for a
branded product, but you often end up using nearly four times as much of the cheaper alternative to get the same result. And because those products are less effective, you need to run hotter washes, which drives up energy use. These behind-the-scenes costs rarely get tracked, but they add up fast, and the true expense of those ‘savings’ quietly spirals. With one provider, we helped implement
a branded laundry solution using the right products. It delivered measurable benefits within weeks:
WavebreakMediaMicro -
stock.adobe.com
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56
