Fuel Banks Explained
Fuel banks, sometimes called warmbanks, are simple but innovative solutions to protect people from fuel poverty. No one should be forced to choose whether to put food on the table or heat their homes.
It is estimated that currently, between 4.1 million and 7.3 million households are living in fuel poverty, with half of these households expected to be family homes with young children.
Living in cold homes can be detrimental to both an individual’s physical and mental health regardless of their age and it is estimated that fuel poverty is costing the NHS an estimated £1.4 billion a year.
Fuel banks therefore offer a solution to enable individuals to live in happier, healthier, and warmer homes by addressing how someone’s health starts at home and offering solutions to overcome the current housing issues facing the UK to prevent further deterioration of health.
But what are fuel banks? How do they work? And how can they reduce the increasing public health pressures on the NHS?
By the end of this article, you should know everything about fuel banks including how they work, who funds them, and most importantly who can use them and where to find them. In this article, we will also explain how social prescribing in housing can also help fuel banks develop further so more people in need can be helped to prevent further dependency on primary and emergency care.
Fuel Banks – What are they?
Fuel banks, often referred to as warmbanks, are similar in their approach but they operate differently.
Warmbanks are spaces where people can go to be warm for free if they can’t afford to turn on their heating at home. Operating in similar ways to food banks, they help individuals with the surging costs of energy by providing a safe and warm place to go. Often run by charities, councils, and community groups, warmbanks have been increasing in volume over the past couple of years, and now over 50% of councils in England and Wales are involved in setting up warmbanks.
Fuel banks, however, are simple but innovative ways to help individuals be able to pay for their energy bills. Founded by Npower and developed further with partnerships with The Fuel Bank Foundation and Feeding Britain, most fuel banks provide two weeks of emergency fuel credit to people at risk of being disconnected from their energy supplier.
What makes fuel banks so effective is that they offer fuel credit available to anyone regardless of their energy supplier so any household in need can be supported.
What is the Trussel Trust Fuel Bank?
You may have already heard of the Trussel Trust due to being one of the biggest Food Bank charities across the UK. The Trussel Trust Fuel Bank works in the same way, to ensure no individuals have to live in colder homes.
They work in partnership with many energy suppliers including Npower, British Gas, and other organsiations such as National Energy Action to be able to fund the credit vouchers they give out.
Currently, there are over 140 fuel banks across the UK, with the Feeding Birkenhead piloting one of the first fuel banks in Wirral Food Bank back in 2016. Since then they have supported over 6,000 people in just over 7 years.
Fuel bank vouchers – how do they work?
Fuel bank vouchers work by providing eligible individuals using a pre-payment meter with a voucher up to £49 credit on their bills which they can receive up to three times a year.
Here fuel bank vouchers can be used to pay for gas, heating bills, or electricity arrears. As funding increases it is anticipated more families and individuals will be able to benefit from the scheme as well as prevent individuals from self-disconnecting their power to reduce health and safety crisis risks.
To receive a fuel bank voucher, an individual has to be referred. Referrals can be sent in from a variety of different stakeholders including social workers, food banks, welfare advice, as well as GPs. Local councils can also refer individuals if they have the facilities set up to do so.
Fuel bank programme – Why are they important?
Like food banks, fuel bank services are important to help individuals and families in need have better support so they can heat their homes, reduce stress, and reduce physical health complications.
Living in fuel poverty and cold homes has many negative impacts on individuals' physical and mental health. On average, over 7,400 deaths last winter were caused by individuals living in cold homes and that’s because it increases many different health risks. Some of these health risks include:
- Increased likelihood of strokes and heart attacks by the cold temperatures thickening the blood and increasing one’s blood pressure
- A reduction in one’s ability to fight off infections
- Respiratory diseases and infections including influenza and pneumonia – which can be more serious for asthma sufferers
- Breathing problems caused by damp growth in cold homes
- Increased risks of mental health issues including stress, anxiety, and depression
These increased health risks in turn increase the pressure on the NHS. It is estimated that over 8 million adults spent 2023/24 in cold damp homes worsening public health pressures on the NHS. It is no surprise then that fuel poverty is costing the NHS an estimated £1.4 billion every year.
In the King’s Fund's latest report, commissioned by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, they highlighted the crucial link between poverty and health. They explain that a staggering 49% of people in the most deprived areas report their physical health being impacted by the cost-of-living crisis, compared to 27% in less deprived areas.
Fuel banks are important as they provide a preventative measure to stop individuals’ health from deteriorating further and rely on emergency or primary care when budgets are already limited and demands are high.
The immediate support from fuel banks helps provide emergency assistance when needed to prevent fuel poverty from escalating further and causing more severe hardship to the individual or family, and the NHS.
Through working collaboratively with other organisations, fuel banks are important as they offer better-targeted support to those who need it. For example, through working with housing associations and primary care settings a stronger population health management approach can be used to support more vulnerable populations at risk of fuel poverty to maximise the impact of their assistance. Here this coordinated and co-productive approach ensures individuals facing financial difficulties receive the holistic support they need as well as fuel assistance.
Fuel banks play a crucial role in reducing fuel poverty therefore by providing immediate assistance and by collaborating with other stakeholders to underline the causes and other social determinants of health causing energy insecurities.
Fuel bank scheme examples
For fuel banks to be more successful, more widespread, and support more individuals and families, they need to be proven that they are delivering the right outcomes.
1. The Fuelbank Foundation
One of the leading fuel bank charities, The Fuelbank Foundation, are working extremely hard to provide evidence for fuel banks to receive more funding and charitable donations. They are a great example of best practices in how to facilitate, develop, and create fuel banks to support individuals in need.
Since becoming a registered charity in 2017, they have grown from strength to strength and now they have over 750 partners located at the heart of multiple communities. These partnerships help to identify those in need so support can be provided immediately to those who have fallen through every other safety net of support.
Since 2017 they have supported over 1.4 million people, with 99.7% of people being supported on the same day the referral has been made since September 2023. 72% of individuals also saw a significant improvement in their physical wellbeing after receiving their fuel bank voucher with another 80% seeing a significant improvement in their mental wellbeing too.
The Fuelbank Foundation therefore demonstrates the positive impacts fuel banks can have on individuals and the wider community by reducing demands and pressures on the NHS as well as supporting individuals to get back on their own two feet.
2. Warm Wales
Warm Wales is an example of an organisation providing holistic support and fuel bank vouchers in Wales to tackle fuel poverty.
Warm Wales is Wales’s oldest Community Interest Companies (CIC) working to tackle fuel poverty through providing multiple services to ensure people across Wales and South-West England have warm and safe homes.
Here they have a team of trained energy advisors and community workers to provide advice, referrals, and access to grants and fuel bank vouchers such as gas connection grants, as well as social prescribing services.
Their organisation has been able to grow massively to collaborate with organisations like Newport City Homes to facilitate seamless referral pathways to address poverty-related challenges and prevent further mental and physical health deterioration.
Through Warm Wales offering more holistic support as well as fuel bank vouchers, they have received over 4,200 referrals in the last four years with 93% of individuals experiencing reduced anxiety about energy bills.
By investing in digital social prescribing software Warm Wales demonstrates the benefits of social prescribing in housing as well as be able to better report their evidence for both social prescribing and fuel banks to prove the business case for how these innovative solutions do tackle fuel poverty.
This, in turn, is helping them to secure more future funding, develop and create more projects across Wales, and foster wider adoption in combatting fuel poverty, demonstrating further the positive impacts of fuel banks.
Summarising the impacts of fuel banks and social prescribing
In this article, I have explained what fuel banks are, how they work, and most crucially why they are important. By explaining why they are important this article has explained the different mental and physical health risks that can be increased by individuals and families living in colder homes and the long-term impacts that has on them and the NHS.
This article has explained how fuel banks and warmbanks are just two examples of how charities, communities, councils, and local governments are setting schemes and programmes in place to tackle fuel poverty.
What is important to note is that fuel bank schemes can only be truly successful when co-production approaches are used with different energy suppliers, organisations, and primary care settings. That way the best tailored support to those who need it can be provided before something more critical takes place.
By explaining how fuel banks work and how they are funded, this article explains how fuel bank vouchers are currently working. However, funding can be limited so it is important to have evidence for fuel banks to make it more widely adopted. This article has shown two main examples of best practices of fuel banks including The Fuel Bank Foundation and Warm Wales.
Warm Wales shows how fuel banks alongside other strategies to tackle fuel poverty, particularly social prescribing, can help address both health inequalities and the wider social determinants of health to demonstrate how social prescribing models can be adopted in the housing sector to provide holistic support that matters to the individual. This, in turn, means that as well as receiving fuel assistance, individuals can receive support to help better manage finances, get them back on their feet, and reduce anxieties about bills.
Learn more about our digital social prescribing software today to discover how we can help your organisation, like Warm Wales, secure more future funding by proving the business case for fuel banks so we can all live in happier, healthier, and warmer homes.
Contact us today and let’s start tackling fuel poverty in your local area now.
