Each winter across the UK, on average, at least 11,400 people die due to a cold home. During the “Beast from the East” in the winter 2017/18, people were ten times more likely to die from living in a cold house than a road accident. As well as the direct devastating impacts of a cold home, the resulting loss in productivity and cold-related ill health causes significant health and social care costs, queues at GP surgeries and emergency departments and delays the discharge of the most vulnerable patients from hospital.
This general election will be the first fought in the midst of winter in living memory. All prospective parliamentary candidates will be knocking on doors where warmth is a struggle and where people will adopt desperate coping tactics to keep warm.
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