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The Independent
04-03-2025
- Health
- The Independent
Seven in ten healthcare workers see patients unable to pay energy bills, survey suggests
Seven in ten healthcare workers regularly see patients who can't afford their energy bills, with high costs driving preventable respiratory problems, a survey suggests. New research from health campaign group MedAct shows how the high cost of energy is causing people to live in cold, damp, mouldy homes. Doctors have warned that poor living conditions are causing an 'entirely preventable public health crisis'. Of the 70 per cent of healthcare workers who reported seeing patients forced to go without energy, three in 10 said they were seeing this weekly while one in ten said they saw patients unable to pay their bills every day. Over two-thirds of health workers - 68 per cent - said that high energy bills were contributing to avoidable hospital admissions, and 45 per cent said that they had sent patients home knowing that their housing situation would make them ill again. Dr LJ Smith, a respiratory consultant working in London, told researchers: 'Every single day I treat patients whose lung conditions are entirely preventable, but they tell me their homes are cold, mouldy and damp, and they just cannot afford to keep the heating on. 'As a healthcare worker I shouldn't need a detailed knowledge of energy tariffs and benefits - I just want to get back to the job that I was trained to do, working with my patients to help them thrive despite their lung condition. This is a public health crisis that is entirely preventable.' Dr Amaran, a paediatric doctor working in Sheffield, said: 'I and other children's health workers are increasingly concerned by having to send children home with inhalers and medicines, knowing full well that for the many living in unsafe and unhealthy homes, it will be a matter of days and weeks before they're sick again, with serious implications for their life chances.' In 2022-23, 3.5 million households in England lived in a home that failed to meet the Decent Homes Standard, the minimum standard for liveable housing. One million households lived in a home with damp, data from the English Housing Survey found. Damp was most likely to impact private renters, with 441,000 homes affected in 2022-23. More than 26,000 babies and toddlers were admitted to hospital last year with lung conditions probably linked to exposure to damp and mould, BBC analysis of NHS data found. A new energy price cap of £1,849 starts from April, marking a third straight increase. Ofgem chief executive Jonathan Brearley said that the UK's 'reliance on international gas markets' was continuing to drive up bills, adding: 'It's more important than ever that we're driving forward investment in a cleaner homegrown system.' He also warned that energy debts, which began during the 2021 energy crisis, have reached record levels and would continue to grow without intervention. Caroline Simpson, from campaign group Warm This Winter who commissioned the survey, said renewable energy and insulation programmes were the answer to high energy bills. 'Only by doing that will we free bill-payers from the high cost of energy so they can get the homes they deserve,' she said. Liberal Democrat Health and Social Care spokesperson Helen Morgan MP said:'It is infuriating to think that so many people who otherwise would be healthy and able to live their lives to the fullest are in pain and forced to endure an NHS that is already at breaking point as they can't heat their homes properly. 'The government urgently needs to change course to protect people's bills and ultimately keep them out of hospital.' Some 2,128 healthcare workers were polled as part of the research. A spokesperson for the Department of Energy Security said: 'Everyone deserves to live in a warm, comfortable home. We have set out proposals to help almost three million more households, including almost one million with children, with support to pay their energy bills next winter. 'Our Warm Homes Plan will make homes cheaper and cleaner to run, rolling out upgrades from new insulation to solar and heat pumps - with up to 300,000 homes to benefit from upgrades later this year. "Up to half a million households could also be lifted out of fuel poverty by 2030 in major boost to standards in the private rental sector."
The Guardian
25-02-2025
- Business
- The Guardian
Cost of global energy crisis on households in Great Britain ‘to hit £3,000 by summer'
The cost of the global energy crisis caused by Russia's invasion of Ukraine will reach £3,000 for the average British household by the summer, after another expected increase in bills in April. The average annual bill in Great Britain under the latest energy price cap is forecast to be about £750 higher than in the pre-invasion winter of 2020-21, a 75% increase, according to calculations by the End Fuel Poverty Coalition, a campaign group. The cumulative toll of the price increases in the last four years comes to £3,033, the group said. Global energy prices soared after Russia's invasion of Ukraine, which began three years ago on Monday. In response, European countries scrambled to wean themselves off Russian gas rather than fund the war ordered by Vladimir Putin. Gas prices rose and have not fallen back to prewar levels. That has meant that most households in Great Britain have since then been paying the maximum allowed under the government's energy price cap. This was introduced in 2019 to ensure people who do not shop around for energy were not paying far over the odds but has since become the de facto rate for millions of people. Ofgem, Great Britain's energy regulator, is due to announce the level for bills from 1 April later on Tuesday. Analysts at Cornwall Insight, a consultancy, have forecast a 5% increase in the cap for the three months from 1 April to £1,823. The extra costs came even after the government's energy price guarantee, which prevented energy prices from rising above a rate of £2,500 a year. In practice the prices households pay can be considerably more than the cap because the cap is based on a rate per unit of energy used. The End Fuel Poverty Coalition said the extra costs would be particularly difficult for poorer households and those with higher usage such as larger families and those using medical equipment. Simon Francis, the campaign group's coordinator, said: 'The burden of high energy bills has gone on long enough and as long as our energy bills remain tied to the cost of gas, households continue to be at the mercy of global markets and a fossil fuel industry which is making billions of pounds in profit every year. 'But alongside the transition away from reliance on gas, it's crucial to provide support for vulnerable households struggling with energy costs now and to invest in improving energy efficiency of homes.' The regulator last increased the cap in January by 1.2% to a rate equivalent to £1,738. That compared with a cap equivalent to an average energy bill of £1,042 in the six months to March 2021. Sign up to Business Today Get set for the working day – we'll point you to all the business news and analysis you need every morning after newsletter promotion Caroline Simpson, a manager for Warm This Winter, another campaign group, said the UK should rapidly increase renewable power generation, as well as decouple the price of renewables from gas prices. 'These constant hikes show the UK is still too reliant on foreign energy imports and the answer is not more North Sea drilling,' she said. 'Our gas fields are now virtually exhausted and any resources extracted as a result of new developments would be sold on the open market, making vast profits for foreign-owned energy giants and doing nothing to bring down bills for ordinary people.'
