Beacon Purchasing launches new service for healthcare sector

Beacon Purchasing, the largest procurement specialist for the independent hospitality sector, has launched a new division aimed specifically at the healthcare sector at this week’s Care Show at Olympia. Beacon Healthcare, the new division, will provide consultative purchasing strategy and solutions to not only help care home operators identify opportunities to improve buying efficiency, reduce overheads and save money, but also provide solutions to help improve the days of residents and staff alike.

Nick Ryan, who joined Beacon recently from Unilever Foodsolutions, is heading up the division. He explained, “On the back of Beacon’s history of providing procurement solutions for over 2,000 independent hospitality businesses, including some existing care customers, and having had some service requests from other care homes, it was a natural progression for us to launch to the sector.

“Price is obviously important but our research showed that care operators really want to work with suppliers that understand not just the care sector, but the very different and specialist requirements within it. For example, the needs of elderly care homes versus a home specifically for dementia care can be very different and it’s important that the suppliers they use understand and recognise this. That’s why we’ve researched and partnered with some of the best suppliers in the care sector to ensure the Beacon Healthcare offer provides the broadest spectrum of specialist support for these care home operators.”

The care sector is a rapidly growing industry and relies on a wide range of suppliers to meet its very diverse requirements from food and beverage to medical supplies and compliant interior design solutions. In addition to its existing supplier base, Beacon Healthcare is also working with established specialist care suppliers such as Whitakers and Countrywide Healthcare.

Beacon already provides procurement services to several care homes and as a result of their track record with these customers, Beacon Healthcare had finalised negotiations with a number of care home groups before its launch this week.

Care home operators who sign up to Beacon’s services will be able to use Beacon Online, their e-procurement solution which gives even more opportunities to operators to control and manage their costs.