Everything you need to deliver a warm home outcome for your patients – now and in the future
Simpler, easier and more scalable than running your own service in-house
When you choose the Warm Ho
l you have to do is offer a Warm Home Prescription to your target patient group and ensure they opt in. We handle everything else.
The Warm Home Prescription Full Service exists to:
- help people stay warm and stay well at home
- reduce cost pressures on the NHS by freeing up hospital space
- proactively help vulnerable people and low income households
- reduce energy consumption, energy bills and carbon emissions from homes
The service is based on detailed research and trials which show clear benefits for patients who have been prescribed warmth and needed less professional clinical care as a result.
This is a good choice if:
- Your organisation does not have the time or capability to handle complicated payments systems and relationships with energy suppliers and installers
- You want to mobilise a service quickly
- You want to make effective use of budgets and funding
- You want to work with local partners to maximise the budget and the benefits
Adapt the level of service required to meet your patients’ needs and your budget:
Immediate warmth – help for paying heating bills
Additional credit on energy bills, giving them the confidence to turn up the heat now.
Long term warmth – energy efficiency solutions made simple
Not everyone wants or can cope with large works in their home so we can install quick, low-cost solutions to improve energy efficiency in the long term.
Long term warmth – large scale energy efficiency
Where eligible and suitable we will refer your patients into local and national services that fund and provide larger scale measures to deliver a warm home in the long term i.e. home insulation, replacement heating, solar PV
Why run your Warm Home Prescription® service with the Catapult?
Our energy advisors and installation partners are experts in supporting vulnerable groups and will be a single point of contact throughout the process. We know how to navigate the complicated energy market processes and open doors to other support available in the energy market. As the creator of the Warm Home Prescription concept, you can expect:
- All contact with the energy market managed. We navigate the intricacies of energy support and are a single point of entry into the energy supply chain. We set up and manage all supplier partners, so you don’t have to
- Your budget to go further. We use our energy bill calculators and connections to energy market programs to provide greater impact for your patients.
- A simple, fully supported process. Your staff don’t need to know anything about energy – just get consent from the patient and hand them over to the energy experts to support them through the Warm Home Prescription process
- Secure management of patient data from start to finish. No need to navigate complicated data sharing agreements
- Quality monitored throughout & reporting provided as needed
Which health conditions should we target?
We have worked with NHS trusts in England and Health Boards in Scotland who have targeted patients with severe respiratory and cardiovascular disease and cancer but Warm Home Prescription is equally suitable for those that suffer from, and would meet NICE guidance for, other health conditions such as:
- cardiovascular conditions
- people with any respiratory condition
- illnesses affecting the immune system
- physical disabilities that limit mobility
A Warm Home Prescription would make a significant difference those undergoing treatments such as:
- cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy
- renal patients undergoing dialysis
- or people who have just been discharged from hospital for whatever reason
All these, and others can be included within the Warm Home Prescription service, – we can target to match your priorities.
What will we need from you?
Identify your patients that are at risk of being in poor health if living in a cold home. We can work with you to agree selection criteria to fit your strategic aims.
Proactively offer the service to your patients & gain consent. We can provide standard template letters, emails and phone prompts to make it easy for you.
Budget for the bill credit and/or small energy efficiency measures.
We’ll manage the service from there.
What funding is available?
Partners we’ve worked with have utilised different sources of funding including:
- The Better Care fund.
- Health and Inequalities Funding
- NHS Social prescribing funds
- Household Support Fund which can be access in partnership with local authorities as part of the integrated care system structure
- Ofgem Redress fund (eligibility may vary for different regions)
- Depending on your location, and the levels of service you select, wherever possible/suitable, we will refer your patients into existing energy efficiency schemes to cover the cost of the large-scale energy efficiency measures.
Think we can help you?
Contact usWarm Home Prescription FAQs
What support will the patients have access to?
- An information pack when signed up for Warm Home Prescription detailing the full service
- An assigned expert energy advisor who will be the point of contact throughout the process, offering an explanation of the service and availability to ask any questions
- Regular updates by email and text message
- Communication either directly or with a family member
What consent is needed from patients?
The patient or nominated representative confirms that they wish to benefit from the service.
What data do we need to extract?
The first contact with the patient is made by the healthcare sector, therefore you will need to extract patient personal data for the health condition you are targeting. We can advise on relevant healthcare codes if needed.
Do I need approval from my Caldecott Guardian?
No. Patient data is shared with Warm Home Prescription service only with patient consent.
The first step is carried out by the healthcare provider who obtains the patient’s informed consent to be transferred into the Warm Home Prescription service. The Catapult, or its partners, do not see patient data unless opted in. We never see sensitive health data.
Couldn’t we do this ourselves?
You could implement your own, local equivalent scheme. On the plus side, it might seem cheaper, and allow you to allocate funding more precisely to focus on local issues.
But, there are many disadvantages. Your team would have to…
- negotiate relationships and partnerships with an energy industry that is complex and fractured
- work out how to handle secure payments to multiple energy companies
- create a secure system for handling patient data
- set up a system to track and manage all participating patients
…among many other things. All of that, on top of the day job.
Warm Home Prescription Full Service does all of those tasks for you, so that your team can focus on what they do best.
What’s the process?
In brief, the service works like this:
- Health professionals (e.g. social prescribers and complex care teams linked to GP surgeries) identify eligible patients with specific health conditions
- If your organisation is part of the NHS and you’re a funder of the service in your area, you contact those patients to offer them a Warm Home Prescription (WHP), and get their consent to take part
- The list of patients who have granted consent is shared with the WHP team
- One of our Energy Advisors conducts a phone survey with each patient, to understand their current energy use and heating set-up; this helps ensure that they get the best possible outcome from using the service
- We contact the relevant energy suppliers, and arrange to make credit payments to patient’s energy accounts
- For some patients, there’s an additional in-person home visit by an Energy Advisor to gather more information, or by an engineer when we’re installing energy efficiency measures
- With their permission, we will refer patients to relevant energy efficiency schemes so they get energy efficiency measures installed in their homes (at no cost to them) – for example loft insulation, or a new heating system giving them warmth in the long term.
Can you accommodate all types of heating?
We can calculate the bill credits for gas heating which is c85% of UK homes
If additional heat is needed for electrically or oil heated homes we can provide electric heaters and estimate the additional bill cost of running these heaters.
Can you apply credit to all sorts of energy meters?
We can calculate and apply funds to all types of energy meters. We apply different processes to accommodate the complicated metering options that are in existence across the UK.
Any exclusions?
Residents of care homes are not included as their heating is provided centrally.
Heat with rent households as they do not have a separate energy bill.
Want to know more?
Find out more about how Energy Systems Catapult can help you and your teams
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Want to know more?
Find out more about how Energy Systems Catapult can help you and your teams