Spike in at-home dialysis care sparks energy bill concerns

People with chronic kidney disease are increasingly being sent home to continue dialysis care, leaving them with energy bills four times higher than average, an industry expert has warned.

Sarah Oldman, head of affordability & vulnerability at Eon Next, was speaking during a panel session at Utility Week Customer Summit in Birmingham this week in which she revealed her company had partnered with Kidney Care UK to understand more about the challenges facing those choosing to have treatment at home.

There are currently around 30,000 people in the UK dependent on dialysis treatment and Oldman said the cost of living crisis was having a particular impact on these consumers in terms of their energy costs.

She said: “We’ve seen a lot more contact from customers that have been sent to recuperate at home and particularly using dialysis machines. They are having to make exceptionally tough decisions at home about whether or not they run that machine overnight, because there’s the cost of the energy.

“It’s very early days, but we’re partnering with Kidney Care UK to try and understand this a lot more and how can we support those customers, because their bill is likely to be four times larger than an average property.”

Speaking to Utility Week following the event Fiona Loud, policy director at Kidney Care UK, said patients receiving dialysis at home are entitled to payments from the NHS to reimburse the cost of energy used during treatment.

However, she said that it has “always been really variable as to whether trusts pay anybody back, and how much they pay them back”.

She further explained that the charity has conducted research via various surveys into the process for patients.

Loud added: “What we found out, of course, was that there’s this enormous variation in how much people get paid, how frequently they get paid, and whether they actually get their money reimbursed at all.

“We really, really believe that people who need to use energy to stay alive should get a full, fair and timely reimbursement for that energy.”

The charity is also calling for utilities to better identify people with chronic kidney disease to potentially add them onto their Priority Services Registers (PSR).

Loud said as well as Eon, the company has worked with network operator Electricity North West, as well as water companies Anglian, Southern and Severn Trent – with dialysis also involving water use.

Pete Holland, Anglian’s director of customer & wholesale services, was also on the panel at Customer Summit. He explained that the company examined ONS data on the probability consumers in its area have different types of vulnerabilities, with kidney disease being listed.

Holland said after working with Kidney Care UK, Anglian saw a “massive shift” in the number of customers going onto its PSR.

“Literally thousands and thousands of customers went onto our PSR…” he said.