The scandal of pensioner winter deaths

Why is society in Wales so prepared to put up with more older people dying in the winter compared to other months of the year?

In 2012/13, the Chief Medical Officer for Wales confirmed that this is the case with 1,900 more deaths in the winter months, with 70% of these attributed to our over 75 year olds. This pattern is repeated year on year.

Why? Because as we age, we become frailer, our bodies are less able to cope with low temperatures and we become more susceptible to respiratory and circulatory illness.

This is backed up by accepted figures in Wales that 140,000 pensioners are in fuel poverty, meaning they need to spend more than 10% of their income on fuel costs.

“Just turn the heating on”, I hear you say. It’s not as simple as that. With rising energy costs and many older people on a fixed income, many cannot afford to pay their fuel bills... so they don’t turn on the heating. Many older people face many difficult decisions, like choosing between eating or heating their home.

Many thousands of older people can’t survive on their state pension or are not claiming the benefits they are entitled to. They have boilers which are old, inefficient and use more fuel. They live in properties which aren’t insulated. They are on an expensive fuel tariff and don’t know how to change provider. They don’t know about the latest government grant scheme that just might be able to help them.

This isn’t good enough. It is clear that the system isn’t working because we still have older people dying in the winter who wouldn’t be dying in other months of the year.

While there are undoubtedly plenty of schemes that could help, there is confusion for older people about where to go and what help they can get, and we are not doing enough to find and help the people who need that help the most.

There have been numerous grant schemes, over many years, such as Home Energy Efficiency Scheme (HEES), Carbon Emissions Reduction Target (CERT), Community Energy Saving Programme (CESP), and now, the NEST and Energy Company Obligation (ECO). There is lots of evidence to suggest that these schemes have helped improve many properties, helped many people on low incomes and reduced carbon emissions, particularly in the social housing sector. Housing associations and local authorities have undoubtedly carried out some great work with energy companies for the benefit of their properties and their tenants.

We now need to focus on the people we haven’t reached. One particularly affected group is low income, older owner occupiers dispersed in urban, suburban and rural areas across all of Wales. Finding these people requires more up front effort and is not as attractive to energy companies who have legal targets on the quantity of carbon emissions they need to reduce, so instead have targeted geographic energy efficiency schemes at scale.

So, to combat older people dying of cold this winter, Care & Repair Cymru is running their Fighting Fuel Poverty campaign this week (October 20-24) to find older people who are most at risk and to provide them with practical advice.

We aim to help them access benefits and available grants to keep them warm, as well as assisting them directly with our “Health through Warmth” grants, delivered in partnership with Npower.

We’re also asking people who receive the winter fuel payment, but don’t need it, to donate it to a hardship fund at Care & Repair by calling 0300 111 3333 so that we can redirect this to older people in fuel poverty who need more help.

As we head into the winter months and look ahead to the UK elections next year, we believe that the UK and Welsh Governments need a rebalancing of policy focus so that tackling fuel poverty and stopping winter deaths amongst our older people receives as much attention as reducing CO2 emissions.

We need co-ordinated action by government and energy companies to target advice and energy efficiency grants based on specific need of individuals as well as wider need to reduce the carbon footprint.

As the Older People’s Housing Champion for Wales, our “Fighting Fuel Poverty” campaign aims to highlight the scandal of pensioner winter deaths and find solutions to help those in need. We’re only a phone call away, so if you’re an older person or have a relative, neighbour or friend in need of help, please call one of our local agencies on 0300 111 3333. Care & Repair can reach out and spread a bit of human kindness and warmth this winter to those feeling left out in the cold.


Chris Jones
Chief Executive
Care & Repair Cymru

We can help you

During Care & Repair Week, we want to get a simple message out to the many thousands of older homeowners in Wales who live in poor housing. That message is: 'We can help you'.

If you are having difficulty getting up the stairs, if you can’t get in and out of the bath, if you are cold but afraid to turn on your heating because it costs so much, if your roof leaks, if your walls are damp, if your house is in disrepair, if you’re scared of falling on the steep steps to your house… whatever your housing problem, we can help you.

Last year, we helped 30,000 older people with their housing problems, 12,000 of whom lived alone. Most of the people we help are aged over 60 and their average age is 75. 10% of the people we help are over 90. Last year, 20 of our 22 Agencies helped people aged 100 years old or more.

We provide our services across the whole of Wales so wherever you live, we can get out to you, assess your housing problem, make sure you are claiming everything you are entitled to, talk to you about what you want, find out what grants or other funding is available to help you, find you a reliable builder, supervise the work, or do the work ourselves with one of our in-house handy-persons.

Our services are important. Not only do they help improve older people’s quality of life by keeping them safe, warm and independent in their own home, but they also keep them out of places they don’t want to be - ambulances, hospitals, GP surgeries and residential care homes. And we work with others to get it right, such as important partners like Welsh Government, occupational therapists, local authority housing staff, housing associations and health professionals.

But for older people, our biggest message for Care & Repair week is… We can help you! If you would like to contact us, you can call 0300 111 3333 anywhere in Wales and be connected to your local Care & Repair Agency.


Chris Jones
Chief Executive, Care & Repair Cymru 


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Why we need to make every visit count

During such difficult economic times, with public service budgets under severe pressure, there are many reasons why we must make every visit count. First and foremost, for our clients. Care & Repair in Wales visit around 30,000 clients every year and this is the opportunity for our caseworkers and technical officers to discuss what their concerns are and take action, either directly through Care & Repair’s services or in partnership with others who can help. We need to make visits count by comprehensively tackling the range of problems and concerns identified. These include: 'I’m worried about paying my gas and electricity bill'; 'what will I do this winter when it’s freezing again?'; 'how am I going to get my leaking roof seen to?'; 'I can’t use my bath anymore' and 'who can help me repair my broken steps?' For the sake of our clients, we aim to efficiently resolve as many of these problems as we can, either directly or making sure that we refer to other third sector organisations, local authority and health professionals if we can't.

Making every visit count is also about making it count in financial terms. Our services prevent or reduce admissions to hospital and residential care by making the home environment accessible, warm, safe and secure. What counts here is the way in which helping older people to live independently in their own homes can take pressure off Health and Social Care services by preventing falls, preventing cold-related respiratory and circulatory illness, or by preventing the need for residential care by making the home safe and accessible. This makes every visit count for public finances.

Making every visit count is about providing comprehensive solutions to older people who need our help. It’s about being efficient and about working in partnership with others. And finally, it’s about providing solutions to help older people to live independently and reduce demand for Health and Social Services who find themselves under increasing pressure.


Chris Jones
Chief Executive, Care & Repair Cymru

Care & Repair Cymru's conference, Every Visit Counts, took place on 18/19 September in Wrexham. Did you attend? Look out for a blog post on issues discussed at the conference!

No place like your own home

Older people tell us they prefer to live independently in their own homes and communities, and we aim to make this a reality for as many as we can. Some important Welsh Government policies have similar ambitions. Together for Health recognises the need to change how NHS services are delivered to an ageing society, providing more preventative services, closer to home. The Social Services and Wellbeing Bill proposes more preventative services and closer working between Health and LAs. There is no doubt that greater integration between health and social care is essential if Wales is to deliver effective services that reduce the impact of high levels of chronic ill-health in an ageing population.

And yet, the role of housing in this is too often forgotten. Good quality, safe, accessible housing is an important part of a more integrated system, and can improve health and social care outcomes, while delivering cost savings. The challenge for housing organisations is to make sure that those who develop policy and commission health and social care services are well informed about the role that housing can play in improving older people's health and producing savings across an increasingly stretched health and social care system.

Some examples... Extra care housing, designed to meet the needs of residents by offering care and support on site and on call, has been shown to improve health and wellbeing for older people, while delivering cost-effective support outside of residential care. Services that improve home energy efficiency and help older people to afford to pay their fuel bills reduce demand by avoiding A&E visits and emergency hospital admissions. Given the scandalous 1,700 annual extra winter deaths, and many thousands more winter admissions, it is crucial that we make clinical commissioners fully aware of the threat of cold homes to our older people. We must also convince them of the return on investment that services like Care & Repair and adaptations can provide. Last year in England saw a huge breakthrough on this front with the Department of Health announcing an additional £40 million for Disabled Facilities Grants. This is a first in terms of significant health investment into housing adaptations. Care & Repair Cymru urges the Welsh Government to take similar steps by diverting relatively small amounts of Health capital funding to the highly successful Rapid Response Adaptations and Independent Living Grant programmes, both of which are more cost effective and quicker than Disabled Facilities Grants.

We also need greater housing input into safe hospital discharge plans. Each local health system should have budgets to allow swift housing adaptations to support recovery and rehabilitation at home, reducing the cost of delayed discharges or readmission. The same is true for the growing number of people with dementia; relying purely on hospital provision to meet their needs is undesirable for those affected and also impossible for the taxpayer. Conversely, greater investment in telehealth, assistive technology and low-level interventions can help people with dementia stay in their own homes in a cost effective way.

The case is clear. Housing needs to be part of an integrated architecture of building healthier communities tailored around someone at home. At a strategic level, housing must be aligned more effectively with health and social care policy. Operationally, housing services, including Care & Repair, must be better networked within local health and social care economies. In this way, we can really begin to plan and deliver the health, social care and support that people aspire to in their own homes and neighbourhoods.

Chris Jones, Chief Executive
Care & Repair Cymru