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.”
