Comment by former Secretary of State at the Department for Work and Pensions and the Department of Energy and Climate Change.

Back in 1970, Bernard Sadow, an American businessman was on holiday with his family in Puerto Rico, lugging two heavy suitcases when he noticed a porter wheeling a luggage rack pilled with bags and it gave him an idea.

On returning home he attached wardrobe casters to the bottom of his luggage and the wheeled suitcase was born.

Bringing together two previously unrelated things – the wheel and the suitcase – solved a problem.

From Henry Ford adapting meatpacking plant assembly lines for his Model T Ford over 100 years ago through to Apple bringing the mobile phone and the iPod together to create the smartphone – recombinant innovation – is key to advancing technology and solving important problems.

And problems don’t get much more important than how we prevent the 14.6 million vulnerable people in the UK who suffer from health conditions, particularly respiratory and cardiovascular illnesses like COPD and emphysema, that are made worse by living in a cold home – ending up in hospital because they cannot afford their heating.

Rising energy prices, driven by Russian aggression in Ukraine, are piling severe pressure on millions of households across Britain. Undoubtedly, this is making life tougher for many people being forced to turn down, or turn off, their heating, where it could be the choice between life or death.

Last winter an exciting pilot run by the innovation centre, Energy Systems Catapult, aimed to bring together two previously unrelated organisations – our health and energy sectors – to try to solve this problem.

The Catapult worked with the NHS in Gloucestershire to design and pilot a small-scale ‘Warm Home Prescription’ service. It partnered the health service – who often have the best idea and data about who in their area is most at risk from living in the cold – with the energy sector, who have the skills needed to keep people warm at home.

An additional benefit of ‘Warm Home Prescription’ is the ability to support “hard to reach” homes that are eligible for funding to improve insulation and energy efficiency, cutting running costs and CO₂ in the longer term (e.g., via ECO). The pilot was a success, both for patients and the health service.

Now Energy Systems Catapult is scaling it up – this winter they are running a 1,000-home trial, funded by bp, to verify if the approach can work at scale and provide sufficient data to drive change in how the health and energy sectors work to support people staying warm and well at home. This could reduce the costs involved in finding vulnerable households and see priority for home energy improvements given to those whose health would benefit the most.

The trial aims to determine whether it is more cost-effective overall to help pay the heating costs of vulnerable people than it is to pay for their health care if they fall ill – saving the NHS money and reducing pressure on frontline staff.

From my experience at the Department of Work and Pensions, I know the importance of targeting resources to the country’s most vulnerable. But one of the toughest challenges for the energy, health, and welfare sectors is actually identifying who the most vulnerable people are. This is a challenge the Government has grappled with over the last 18 months as it sought to target energy bill support to society’s most vulnerable. Overcoming this challenge is no easy feat.

Appetite for cross-sector data sharing to support people in fuel poverty is already demonstrated through the delivery of Warm Home Discount. The Digital Economy Act 2017 enabled Department of Work and Pensions data to be shared with energy suppliers so older low-income households could receive an automatic rebate on their energy bill.

We can, and should, do better. However, it is going to require significant levels of cross-sector innovation to more easily find people who need help and to design services so that the help they get actually helps them get warm at home. But if we can, it will help save lives.

It is our job to roll up our sleeves and face head-on the question of how we get help to the most vulnerable and keep them out of hospital. Even without the background of a health service facing unprecedented pressure, this would be an urgent challenge.

And that is why I am chairing a national taskforce to oversee ‘Warm Home Prescription’.

The taskforce will be made of up professionals in the health, welfare, innovation, and energy fields and will be supported by fuel poverty experts and academics who will oversee the programme. The taskforce will monitor the success of the trial, that is, does it make an immediate impact on the lives of vulnerable people, helping them avoid choosing between heating and eating, and does it help ease the pressure placed on GPs and hospitals by cold homes.

Following the trial, the taskforce will put forward a series of recommendations about how we scale it up and embed the ‘Warm Home Prescription’ into our health, welfare, and energy systems.

Despite years of effort and billions of pounds spent every year, we have not yet made a significant dent in the numbers of households living in fuel poverty – and indeed the current crisis will make this worse.

Cold homes claim approximately 10,000 lives per year and cost the NHS in England around £860 million every year.

As we move in the medium-term to a greener energy system, that is less reliant on volatile international fossil fuel imports, it is essential we innovate to protect the most vulnerable now.

Image displayed is the ‘Official portrait of Amber Rudd’. Author, Chris McAndrew. Used under license CC BY 3.0.