Blog: Shropshire HeatSavers

An innovative scheme to tackle fuel poverty in Shropshire has improved the health and well-being of elderly residents, and has demonstrated substantial savings to the NHS.

As a largely rural area, and with a growing elderly population, the amount of people in fuel poverty in Shropshire is higher than the national average.

Led by Shropshire Council, the HeatSavers scheme showcases collaboration across the health sector, with housing and social care teams working with partners to identify those in the county most susceptible to cold-related disease.

The project’s emotional benefit – reducing fuel poverty and ill health, and ultimately saving lives – is a key aim of the programme, but it also demonstrates financial savings when cost pressures on health services are at their most acute. For every £1 spent in vulnerable low income households on heating interventions, it has saved £5 for the NHS and social care services, as well as the wider public purse.

To date, some £250,000 has been spent on improvements to 120 homes, but this has generated savings in excess of £1.25 million identified using the Building Research Establishment’s Housing Health Cost Calculator.

Initially aided by grant funding, the scheme sees the council’s housing, social care, and public health teams come together to work with the other partners such as WarmZones, npower/Health Through Warmth, Age UK and Marches Energy Agency which has also enabled energy advice and measures in some 2,000 homes over the last four years.

Paul Kelly, Les Poultney, Richard James