Diagnosis: Cold home

Every year thousands of people are dying across the UK because they cannot afford to heat their property. So why can’t the NHS prescribe vulnerable people a warm home? Utility Week speaks to Scottish Power and Energy Systems Catapult about tackling health and heat together.

It is estimated that, on average, more than 10,000 people die each year due to being unable to heat their home in the UK, with the NHS spending an estimated £1.4 billion annually on treating illnesses associated with living in cold or damp housing. When wider societal costs are considered, that figure rises to £15.4 billion.

To try and combat these challenges Scottish Power recently became the first energy supplier to partner with Energy Systems Catapult (ESC) to deliver warm home prescriptions to vulnerable households via local NHS authorities. Through a new iteration of the already proven trial, the supplier will install a range of home upgrade measures, at no cost to the consumer, into the homes of the vulnerable.

Scottish Power is keen to see this scaled up across the industry, with more and more suppliers participating in the near future.

ESC ran the first trial of a warm home prescription with the NHS in Gloucestershire and energy charity Severn Wye. It delivered “remarkable” results.

The initial pilot saw 28 patients prescribed warmth to reduce the risk that the cold would cause harm and an admission to hospital.

Following the success of the pilot, the scheme was subsequently scaled up and differed from the initial trial in that it involved installing home upgrade measures in consumers’ homes. This is also the case for the new phase, in which Scottish Power will fund measures through its Energy Company Obligation (ECO). It is hoped the latest iteration of the trial will deliver measures for 1,000 households, with a long-term ambition of supporting up to 2,000 homes.

One of the concerns regularly cited about ECO is whether trust levels with suppliers are high enough to encourage mass take-up. It is hoped that a partnership with the NHS will help ease these concerns and make the warm home prescription more appealing to those who would benefit most from it.

Rebecca Sweeney, business leader – homes, at the catapult, explains that her organisation has built relationships with a number of NHS trusts that wanted to test out the service.

“There’s a list that the National Institute for Clinical Excellence has of health conditions that are made worse by the cold, but we gave the NHS trusts freedom to pick the types of patients they wanted to offer this service to. It’s done often via social prescribing mechanisms,” she explains.

She adds: “It was upon the NHS to identify the types of patients they felt would benefit most from this service and then they made a referral to us, into the warm home prescription service. We deal with and manage the consents and the data via our digital tool. We can then pass out those as contact details for the team to pick up at Scottish Power.”

“It’s as simple as that,” says Andrew Ward, CEO of Scottish Power’s customer business, who adds: “But a key thing here is that we’re on the back of a medical referral. So when we are approaching a household, it’s not a cold initial visit where frankly we still see examples today where people just don’t believe that we’re about to offer an investment into their home for free of £20,000. We’re on the back of something that’s happened from a medical engagement.”

For Sweeney, there is a further benefit of having these measures installed by a referral.

Consumers in vulnerable situations will often be more concerned with their immediate financial situation rather than seeing value in getting home insulation upgrades which they will struggle to afford.

“We saw in our previous trials 93% of the homes actually valued having a warm home once they’d experienced it through warm home prescription,” says Sweeney. “And we do know that if you’ve got somebody in your home who’s got health conditions made worse by the cold, they’re the last group that actually want to engage with decarbonisation measures and have people walking through their homes to do things.”

She adds that in a previous trial decarbonisation measures were offered to 300 homes, with half taking up at least some measures.

“And that might be everything from insulation to replacing the heating system, right the way through. So we’re seeing a group that historically were very difficult to engage with, they didn’t want to have decarbonisation measures, actually trusting the service and wanting to have that warm home they value.”

Among the measures that will be installed in eligible customers’ homes include upgraded or new insulation in lofts, cavity walls and under floors, upgraded heating systems like air source heat pumps and, where suitable, solar panels – all of which will help contribute to the UK’s decarbonisation efforts.

Ward hopes that by making a consumer’s home more energy efficient, they will benefit more in the longer term.

“If you think about the interventions that we can make in an individual’s home…we could be transforming their home and as a result of that, reducing their actual energy bill by easily £1,500,” he says.

He adds: “If you can take £1,500 out of someone’s annual energy bill, that’s a significant contribution. I would like to see if we can actually take people out of what we would typically class as being in a fuel poverty status today. In my experience, most people in the UK want to pay for their energy bills, they just need help.

“To be honest, when we’re talking about c.£20,000 being spent in someone’s home as a full intervention to help them decarbonise and change heating systems, install solar panels, look at insulation, that’s a lot of investment but it’s investment that some of these households will never ever be able to afford themselves. There’s no mechanism today to help them do that. We provide that mechanism, we channel it directly to the people that need it the most.”

Scottish Power is the first energy supplier to partner with ESC to deliver warm home prescriptions to vulnerable households but both organisations say they want to see these scaled up across the country to help eradicate fuel poverty.

For Ward, a true marker of success will be other companies participating in the scheme.

He explains that his company will provide the support regardless of whether they are Scottish Power customers or not.

“We will tackle any home in the country that’s referred to us, it makes no difference. What I’d ideally like to see is other energy companies come on board…we want to prove that this works,” he says.