HELF looks like a pricing change. For many providers, it feels like a revenue risk.

One of the strongest themes to emerge from a recent sector webinar hosted by carepage wasn’t confusion about the rules or resistance to higher everyday living itself. It was concern about revenue.

Specifically, what happens when providers move from familiar additional services models to HELF and the numbers suddenly don’t look the same?

For many, HELF represents a structural shift. Under additional services, offerings were commonly bundled together, either applied broadly across a home or taken up as a single package on entry. Revenue was structured and comparatively stable.

HELF replaces bundled predictability with individual variability. Services now sit inside a framework built around opt-in, variation and review. The intent makes sense. The commercial certainty many providers relied on does not automatically follow.

The question providers are quietly asking is simple: are we about to give more away for less?

The fear isn’t HELF. It’s erosion.

What came through clearly in the discussion is that providers aren’t opposed to HELF. They understand the policy direction and the focus on choice and fairness.

What worries them is erosion.

Erosion happens when services that were once bundled and predictable become blurred into everyday delivery. When staff, trying to do the right thing, deliver informally. When it’s unclear who has opted into what. When tracking lags behind reality.

Individually, these moments feel minor. Collectively, they add up to lost revenue that’s hard to see and even harder to recover.

This is where HELF starts to feel less like a pricing reform and more like a margin risk.

From additional services to HELF: the real shift is operational.

On paper, the move from additional services to HELF looks like a contracting change. In practice, it’s an operational one.

Under additional services, the commercial structure did much of the work. Under HELF, that structure depends far more heavily on daily execution.

Opt-in and opt-out decisions change. Capacity to benefit changes. Preferences change. That flexibility is intentional, but it introduces variability that must be actively managed.

If those changes aren’t visible in real time, providers tend to default to one of two behaviours: absorbing the cost and delivering services broadly to avoid friction, or pulling back offerings altogether to protect revenue.

Neither approach is sustainable. One leaks margin. The other undermines experience and choice.

The issue isn’t that HELF reduces revenue by design. It’s that without the right infrastructure, revenue quietly leaks through the cracks.

Lost revenue rarely announces itself

Lost revenue does not show up as a dramatic event. It doesn’t arrive as a line item labelled “HELF shortfall”.

It appears more subtly: catering or activity costs rising without a clear explanation; services delivered repeatedly without formal opt-in; packages that looked viable on paper proving harder to sustain in practice; leaders sensing something is off but struggling to identify where.

This is why visibility matters more than ever. Not simply for compliance, but for commercial sustainability.

It is also why more providers are examining how systems can connect opt-in decisions, delivery tracking and reporting in one place, rather than relying on manual processes or disconnected platforms.

HELF is won or lost in daily operations

What became clear through the discussion is that HELF does not unravel at the point of contracting. It unravels in the everyday mechanics of a home.

It unravels when staff are unsure who has opted into which services. When delivery is recorded after the fact, or not at all. When leaders are relying on spreadsheets and instinct rather than live visibility.

HELF becomes workable when opt-in decisions, delivery and oversight are connected in a way that removes guesswork from the floor. When staff are supported by systems that guide delivery rather than forcing judgement calls in the moment. When leaders can see patterns emerging early and respond before they turn into financial pressure.

Without that connective tissue, providers are effectively managing variability with intuition. And in a margin-constrained environment, intuition is rarely enough.

The real risk isn’t the shift. It’s flying blind through it.

The transition from additional services to HELF is happening whether providers feel ready or not. The question is whether it is managed with insight or in the dark.

Providers who treat HELF as merely a pricing adjustment are likely to feel the pressure first. Those who recognise it as an operational shift, and invest in visibility early, will be far better placed to protect both experience and revenue.

HELF does not have to mean giving more away for less. But it does demand clearer systems than many homes have relied on before.

And in a sector where margins are already thin, clarity is not optional.

For those wanting to explore the discussion in more detail, including practical scenarios of how HELF can be supported on the ground, the full webinar recording is available here.