Responding to the government's announcement today that Winter Fuel Payments will be reinstated to around 9 million pensioners, People's Health Trust CEO, John Hume, said:
"We welcome the announcement by the Chancellor that the eligibility for the Winter Fuel Payment will be reinstated to around three quarters of older people, particularly the 2.5 million vulnerable pensioners who narrowly missed out on qualifying.
People’s Health Trust has campaigned hard for change over many months for the reinstatement of the Winter Fuel Payment, working alongside our Network of community organisations, who support tens of thousands of the most disadvantaged older people across Great Britain. Today’s announcement is an important step in the right direction and will make a real difference to the health of some of the most at-risk elderly people in our society.
But lessons should be learned. As we recommended in our report last year, there must be careful consideration of how policies like these are communicated, and how information reaches people who are most likely to be harmed by policy changes. A comprehensive Equality Impact Assessment would have highlighted the risks and could have prevented the negative harm that has been caused.
Future policy proposals such as this must consider people’s different starting points, for example people who are unaware of the changes or are vulnerable to misinformation, or who are experiencing digital exclusion, language barriers, learning difficulties or isolation.
It's also vital that outside of the specific issue of the Winter Fuel Payment, the bigger picture of poverty, discrimination and marginalisation that affects millions of older people - and the need for a focus on prevention - is at the forefront of the government's health mission, and its forthcoming 10 Year Plan for the NHS.
Community organisations should be central to these plans. It was only thanks to the support of grassroots groups, working at the front line of the fallout from last winter's announcements, that many older people were able to navigate these complex systems and forms, and for others it was simply too much to manage, meaning even those eligible missed out."
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