{"id":1448,"date":"2013-03-27T12:00:54","date_gmt":"2013-03-27T12:00:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/strategicsociety.org.uk\/?p=1448"},"modified":"2013-03-27T12:00:54","modified_gmt":"2013-03-27T12:00:54","slug":"cold-enough-excess-winter-deaths-winter-fuel-payments-and-the-uks-problem-with-the-cold","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/strategicsociety.org.uk\/cold-enough-excess-winter-deaths-winter-fuel-payments-and-the-uks-problem-with-the-cold\/","title":{"rendered":"Cold Enough"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>The government could do much more to tackle excess winter deaths and cold-related illness, joining up the work of the four government departments that\u00a0address these issues.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p>Around 25,000 preventable &#8216;excess winter deaths&#8217; occur each year, and the annual cost of cold-related illness to the NHS has been estimated at \u00a31.36 billion.<\/p>\n<p>This report provides a full strategic review of the government&#8217;s response to this ongoing public health scandal, and what it should be doing in future.<\/p>\n<p>The report identifies four government departments with policies that touch upon these issues:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"line-height: 13px;\">Department for Work and Pensions<\/span><\/li>\n<li>Department of Health<\/li>\n<li>Department for Energy and Climate Change<\/li>\n<li>Department for Communities and Local Government<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>However, despite progress achieved via policies such as the Cold Weather Plan, Winter Fuel Payments and the Warm Home Discount scheme, the report concludes the government&#8217;s policy response is still\u00a0characterised by:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>A fragmented, uncoordinated approach across different government departments;<\/li>\n<li>The domination of the issue of \u2018fuel poverty\u2019 over the health effects of the cold, and an over-reliance on incomplete government means testing data; and,<\/li>\n<li>The clear need to do better.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Recommendations of the report include:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Introduce an annual public health campaign linked to the Winter Fuel Payment to further influence cold-related behaviour.<\/li>\n<li>Create a single national \u2018at-risk\u2019 register for the cold, integrating DWP, energy company, GP and local authority data.<\/li>\n<li>Give clinical commissioning groups (CCGs) responsibilities for excess winter deaths.<\/li>\n<li>Enable CCGs and Health and Wellbeing Boards to refer households for free home insulation under the government\u2019s Energy Company Obligation (ECO).<\/li>\n<li>Make excess winter deaths and cold-related illness a Ministerial priority.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Download the report:\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/strategicsociety.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/03\/Cold-Enough-Excess-Winter-Deaths-Winter-Fuel-Payments-and-the-UKs-problem-with-the-cold.pdf\">Cold Enough: Excess winter deaths, Winter Fuel Payments and the UK&#8217;s problem with the cold<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Author: James Lloyd, Director, Strategic Society Centre<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The government could do much more to tackle excess winter deaths and cold-related illness, joining up the work of the four government departments that\u00a0address these issues.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1446,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_uag_custom_page_level_css":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[11,25,26,27,40,104],"acf":[],"uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":["https:\/\/strategicsociety.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/03\/Cold-Enough-Excess-Winter-Deaths-Winter-Fuel-Payments-and-the-UKs-problem-with-the-cold-scaled.jpg",2560,1700,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/strategicsociety.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/03\/Cold-Enough-Excess-Winter-Deaths-Winter-Fuel-Payments-and-the-UKs-problem-with-the-cold-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/strategicsociety.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/03\/Cold-Enough-Excess-Winter-Deaths-Winter-Fuel-Payments-and-the-UKs-problem-with-the-cold-300x199.jpg",300,199,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/strategicsociety.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/03\/Cold-Enough-Excess-Winter-Deaths-Winter-Fuel-Payments-and-the-UKs-problem-with-the-cold-768x510.jpg",768,510,true],"large":["https:\/\/strategicsociety.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/03\/Cold-Enough-Excess-Winter-Deaths-Winter-Fuel-Payments-and-the-UKs-problem-with-the-cold-1024x680.jpg",1024,680,true],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/strategicsociety.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/03\/Cold-Enough-Excess-Winter-Deaths-Winter-Fuel-Payments-and-the-UKs-problem-with-the-cold-1536x1020.jpg",1536,1020,true],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/strategicsociety.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/03\/Cold-Enough-Excess-Winter-Deaths-Winter-Fuel-Payments-and-the-UKs-problem-with-the-cold-2048x1360.jpg",2048,1360,true],"et-pb-post-main-image":["https:\/\/strategicsociety.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/03\/Cold-Enough-Excess-Winter-Deaths-Winter-Fuel-Payments-and-the-UKs-problem-with-the-cold-400x250.jpg",400,250,true],"et-pb-post-main-image-fullwidth":["https:\/\/strategicsociety.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/03\/Cold-Enough-Excess-Winter-Deaths-Winter-Fuel-Payments-and-the-UKs-problem-with-the-cold-1080x675.jpg",1080,675,true],"et-pb-portfolio-image":["https:\/\/strategicsociety.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/03\/Cold-Enough-Excess-Winter-Deaths-Winter-Fuel-Payments-and-the-UKs-problem-with-the-cold-400x284.jpg",400,284,true],"et-pb-portfolio-module-image":["https:\/\/strategicsociety.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/03\/Cold-Enough-Excess-Winter-Deaths-Winter-Fuel-Payments-and-the-UKs-problem-with-the-cold-510x382.jpg",510,382,true],"et-pb-portfolio-image-single":["https:\/\/strategicsociety.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/03\/Cold-Enough-Excess-Winter-Deaths-Winter-Fuel-Payments-and-the-UKs-problem-with-the-cold-1080x717.jpg",1080,717,true],"et-pb-gallery-module-image-portrait":["https:\/\/strategicsociety.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/03\/Cold-Enough-Excess-Winter-Deaths-Winter-Fuel-Payments-and-the-UKs-problem-with-the-cold-400x516.jpg",400,516,true],"et-pb-post-main-image-fullwidth-large":["https:\/\/strategicsociety.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/03\/Cold-Enough-Excess-Winter-Deaths-Winter-Fuel-Payments-and-the-UKs-problem-with-the-cold-2880x1800.jpg",2880,1800,true],"et-pb-image--responsive--desktop":["https:\/\/strategicsociety.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/03\/Cold-Enough-Excess-Winter-Deaths-Winter-Fuel-Payments-and-the-UKs-problem-with-the-cold-1280x850.jpg",1084,720,true],"et-pb-image--responsive--tablet":["https:\/\/strategicsociety.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/03\/Cold-Enough-Excess-Winter-Deaths-Winter-Fuel-Payments-and-the-UKs-problem-with-the-cold-980x651.jpg",829,551,true],"et-pb-image--responsive--phone":["https:\/\/strategicsociety.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/03\/Cold-Enough-Excess-Winter-Deaths-Winter-Fuel-Payments-and-the-UKs-problem-with-the-cold-480x319.jpg",406,270,true]},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"Trevor Sather","author_link":"https:\/\/strategicsociety.org.uk\/author\/trevor-2\/"},"uagb_comment_info":0,"uagb_excerpt":"The government could do much more to tackle excess winter deaths and cold-related illness, joining up the work of the four government departments that\u00a0address these issues.","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/strategicsociety.org.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1448"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/strategicsociety.org.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/strategicsociety.org.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/strategicsociety.org.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/strategicsociety.org.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1448"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/strategicsociety.org.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1448\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/strategicsociety.org.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1446"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/strategicsociety.org.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1448"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/strategicsociety.org.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1448"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/strategicsociety.org.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1448"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}