EIGHT million people are at risk of ill-health caused by substandard housing that is putting “enormous strain” on an overstretched NHS, a coalition of charities warned today.
Nine charities are backing a national Safe Homes Now campaign, demanding an end to the “scandal” of 3.7 million “dangerous” homes “that pose significant risk to inhabitants’ health” in both the private rented and owner-occupied sectors.
The charities said the “hidden housing crisis” included shocking conditions such as rat infestation, damp, leaks and mould on children’s bedding.
They said that grant support for home repairs has been slashed by more than £2 billion over the past decade, preventing the repair of 600,000 homes.
And they highlighted that 2.2 million owner-occupied homes were now defined as “unsafe” — double the number in the private rented sector.
A survey by campaign founder the Centre for Better Ageing revealed increasing problems with heating costs and home maintenance bills.
The nine charities, including St John Ambulance, Race Equality Foundation and children’s charity Barnardo’s, are calling for a “national strategy to tackle the poor quality of the country’s homes” that includes halving the number of unsafe homes within the next decade to improve the nation’s health.
Prime Minister Rishi Sunak giving his speech in central London on welfare reform, April 19, 2024
PM announces major plans to impose curbs on benefits
RISHI SUNAK was accused of launching a “full-on assault” on disabled people today after he announced major plans to impose fresh curbs on benefits.
The Prime Minister said an expected rise in benefits spending is “not sustainable” and vowed to “significantly reform” the system.
He announced a new consultation on personal independent payment (PIP), a non means-tested benefit that helps with extra costs caused by long-term disability or ill health.
Citing an increasing number of people are claiming PIP for anxiety and depression, Mr Sunak said a more “rigorous” approach will be introduced, and that “greater medical evidence” will be required to substantiate a claim.
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He pledged to “tighten” the work capability assessment so that “hundreds of thousands of benefit recipients with less severe conditions will now be expected to engage in the world of work.”
James Taylor of disability charity Scope said the plan “feels like a full-on assault on disabled people.”
He said: “These proposals are dangerous and risk leaving disabled people destitute.
“In a cost-of-living crisis, looking to slash disabled people’s income by hitting PIP is a horrific proposal.”
Disability Rights UK’s head of policy Fazilet Hadi accused the government of “targeting disabled people for a failing economy.”
She said: “The Prime Minister’s approach to systemic inequalities caused by government policies and underfunding of public services, is to further penalise, punish and threaten disabled people living on inadequate benefits.”
Dr Sarah Hughes, CEO of Mind, said: “We are deeply disappointed that the Prime Minister’s speech today continues a trend in recent rhetoric which conjures up the image of a “mental health culture” that has “gone too far”.
“This is harmful, inaccurate and contrary to the reality for people up and down the country. The truth is that mental health services are at breaking point following years of under investment with many people getting increasingly unwell while they wait to receive support.”
She added: “To imply that it is easy both to be signed-off work and then to access benefits is deeply damaging. It is insulting to the 1.9 million people on a waiting list to get mental health support, and to the GPs whose expert judgement is being called into question.”
Labour MP John Trickett offered an alternative solution: “Sunak would stop doctors from issuing ‘sick notes’ in effort to force ill people back to work. I have a 3-part proposal: 1) fully finance the NHS & cut waiting lists 2) an all-out drive to end poverty which is at the root of so much ill health 3) force bosses to pay living wage”.
Image of the Green Party’s Carla Denyer on BBC Question Time.
Responding to Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s plans to stop GPs issuing sick notes to people too ill to work, Green Party co-leader Carla Denyer said:
“How cold hearted do you have to be, and how lacking in empathy, to see this crisis of ill health as anything other than caused by decades of austerity and lack of investment in the NHS?
“The PM should be fixing the NHS so that people can get well, not blaming people who are ill.
“We would invest in mending the health and social care system, not denying people the right to see a GP when they need it.”
A preschool age child playing with plastic building blocks, January 24, 2016
CHILD poverty hit a record high as only the top earners were better off last year, official figures revealed today.
Campaigners said youngsters were being forgotten as the statistics showed food insecurity soared by 53 per cent, 100,000 more working households fell below the poverty line and more pensioners were unable to afford basic goods such as food and heating.
The Department for Work and Pensions estimated 4.33 million children in households in relative low income – below 60 per cent of median income after housing costs — in the year to March 2023.
This is up from 4.22 million the previous year and the highest since comparable records for Britain began in 2002/03.
Medical equipment on a NHS hospital ward at Ealing Hospital in London, January 18, 2023
THE NHS needs a cash injection of around £8.5 billion a year over the next four years to improve the service, experts have said.
The figure is more than three times the £2.5bn promised in the Spring Budget.
A BMJ Commission on the Future of the NHS report said that amount, even alongside a £3.4bn investment over three years to improve productivity through digital transformation “certainly will not make up the significant shortfall that the NHS now faces.”
Nuffield Trust senior associate John Appleby and two colleagues warned annual spending on the NHS rose by just 1.2 per cent between 2010-20, compared to 6.2 per cent from 2000-10.
