What are medically dependent consumers?
Medically dependent consumers (MDCs) are people who depend on mains electricity for medical equipment or treatment, where a loss of power could cause serious harm. Examples include people using home oxygen concentrators, home dialysis, ventilators or other breathing support, and some powered feeding or medication equipment.
“Medically dependent consumer” is a New Zealand term. In Australia, the equivalent is a life support customer, and the premises is registered as having life support equipment. The ideas are similar, but each country has its own definitions and processes.
The regulatory context
New Zealand
In New Zealand, the Electricity Authority’s Consumer Care Obligations became mandatory on 1 January 2025, as part of the Electricity Industry Participation Code. They set out how retailers and distributors must support medically dependent and vulnerable consumers, including how a consumer is identified as medically dependent and how that information is used.
Australia
In Australia, the National Energy Retail Rules include life support obligations for both retailers and distributors, covering registration of life support premises and how customers are treated around planned interruptions. Victoria has its own equivalent rules.
This page is a general explanation, not legal advice. Retailers and networks should check the current rules for their role and jurisdiction.
Why it matters to the contact centre
Medically dependent consumers interact with a utility’s contact centre in several ways:
- Registration. Customers or their health practitioners contact the retailer to apply, and information is shared between retailer and network.
- Planned outages. Registered customers may need additional notice and support before planned work, and may call to discuss how to manage it.
- Unplanned outages. During a fault or storm, a medically dependent consumer may ring the fault line worried about how long they can manage without power.
That last case is where the stakes are highest. In a call avalanche, a medically dependent caller could sit in the same queue as hundreds of routine outage enquiries unless the contact centre is designed to identify them early.
Good practice
- Identify early. Ask during fault triage whether anyone at the address relies on electricity for medical equipment, and use registration data where it’s available.
- Route to a person. Automation can answer routine outage questions, but calls from medically dependent consumers generally belong with a trained agent, through a well-designed AI-to-human handover.
- Safety first. If anyone’s health is at immediate risk, tell the caller to ring 111 (NZ) or 000 (Australia).
- Check the backup plan. Ask whether they have backup power or somewhere else to go, and give the most current estimated time of restoration.
- Follow the escalation process agreed between the retailer and network, and record what was done.
- Keep records accurate. Registration status must be kept up to date and treated as sensitive personal and health information.
- Train every agent, including surge and after-hours staff, in the process and the right tone.