Keeping warm to keep healthy

The County Durham Healthy Homes Partnership is trialling an innovative project called Energy on Prescription. The project looks at investing in vulnerable households to keep them warm in order to keep them out of hospital.
 
By working closely with a GP from the Willington Practice, the project identified 10 patients matching set criteria around their age and particular health conditions and arranged to pay their heating bills over the winter months.

The partnership aims to establish whether or not the patients' ability to heat their homes without worrying about the cost will affect their behaviour by getting those households to complete questionnaires.

Temperature data recorders were also been installed in the properties to monitor the living room and bedroom temperatures during the winter months and the patient’s GP records will be evaluated to track any impact on their health or hospital admissions.
 
Early indications are very promising and show that by investing in keeping these patients warm, their health has been affected in a positive way. Full results will be available in the coming months and it is anticipated that the pilot will be repeated during winter 2011.