Our NHS suppliers page sets out the NHS rules for every kind of supplier, and the NHS supplier net zero guide explains them in full. This post is for residential care homes, nursing homes and home care agencies, which may be paid for by the NHS, a council, residents themselves, or a mix.
Which rules apply to you
| Who is paying | What you may be asked for |
|---|---|
| An NHS body (for example an integrated care board), contract of £5 million a year or more | A Carbon Reduction Plan in the PPN 006 format |
| An NHS body, smaller contract | A Net Zero Commitment, or a Carbon Reduction Plan |
| A council | Whatever its tender documents say; PPN 006 does not apply to councils |
| Self-funding residents | Nothing is required |
NHS bodies in England arrange healthcare services under the Health Care Services (Provider Selection Regime) Regulations 2023, which have no spend thresholds of their own. NHS England's guidance, updated in December 2025, says to use the Procurement Act 2023 thresholds as a guide for those procurements, so the £5 million line still applies.
One point is not settled: how the rules apply to individually arranged placements, such as a continuing healthcare package for one resident, rather than a contract or framework. If you are unsure, ask the commissioning team at your integrated care board. A Net Zero Commitment is short, and our free Carbon Reduction Plan checker and NHS supplier checker help you work out which you need.
What a care home's footprint looks like
Care homes are lived in day and night, run kitchens and laundries, and may have a minibus. An illustrative 40-bed home, with 2026 factors:
| Source | Scope | kg CO2e |
|---|---|---|
| Gas for heating, hot water, kitchen and laundry, 400,000 kWh | 1 | 72,924 |
| Minibus diesel, 2,000 litres | 1 | 5,167 |
| Electricity, 150,000 kWh | 2 | 19,644 |
| Scope 1 and 2 | 97,735 kg, or 97.74 tonnes |
Gas is about 75% of it, at 0.18231 kg CO2e per kWh. So for a home like this, heating controls, insulation and in time a heat pump are where the plan has most to say. A plan also needs the Scope 3 categories PPN 006 requires: staff commuting (a short sample survey is enough), business travel, waste and deliveries you pay for.
Home care: it's the miles
A home care agency has few buildings, but its carers drive all day. An illustrative agency whose carers claim 400,000 miles a year, with one office using 8,000 kWh:
- Carers' mileage: 106.80 tonnes, Scope 3 category 6
- Office electricity: 1.05 tonnes, Scope 2
Mileage is 99% of the total, and your payroll mileage claims already hold the data. Ask carers for their car's fuel type when you can, because in 2026 an average battery electric car is 0.04749 kg CO2e per mile against the 0.26699 "unknown fuel" average used here. Decide how to treat the drive from home to the first visit of the day: it can reasonably be counted as commuting or as business travel. Pick one, write it in your method note and keep to it.
Writing the plan
- Pick a baseline year with a full twelve months of bills and mileage. Our post on choosing a baseline year helps.
- Measure Scope 1, Scope 2 and the five required Scope 3 categories with the government's conversion factors.
- Commit to net zero by 2050 or earlier. The NHS encourages its suppliers to aim for 2045.
- List reduction projects you have done and plan to do, with dates.
- Have a director sign it and publish it on your website.
How Carbon Recycling helps
Import gas and electricity bills for each home and carers' mileage claims from a spreadsheet, and Carbon Recycling applies the right year's DESNZ factor to every line and produces your PPN 006 Carbon Reduction Plan in the government format. Groups with several homes can add each as a site, compare them, and print a report for each home. For the bigger NHS changes coming, see our post on the April 2027 NHS rules.