ollowing Prime Minister Liz Truss’s announcement today of an energy price cap freeze, the Spinal Injuries Association has said more targeted action is required to help disabled people who are struggling with the spiralling cost of their energy bills, and will continue to do so, even if prices are frozen at the level announced today with the additional £400 support for every household this winter.
The charity has been inundated with calls to their support line from spinal cord injured people who are facing energy bill hikes and are struggling to cope with the hidden additional energy costs they face such as heating and charging equipment. A spinal cord injury can mean that many are unable to regulate their body temperature. Additional power is required to maintain warmth as their bodies are unable to warm themselves up naturally. In such cases, it can be a real danger to health to turn the heating down to save on bills.
According to figures from the office of national statistics, in June, 13% of disabled people said it was already “very difficult” to pay those bills and 38% said it was “somewhat difficult”, compared with 6% and 29% of non-disabled bill-payers.
Nik Hartley OBE, CEO of Spinal Injuries Association said:
“Although we welcome the government’s announcement today of a price cap freeze and look forward to seeing the full details and implications of this, it’s disappointing that this intervention hasn’t been better targeted to deliver the support that the most vulnerable people in our society desperately need. We fully support the idea of discounted energy tariffs for disabled customers and call on the government to meet with the energy providers and implement this initiative as soon as possible. SIA remains ready to work with the government and energy providers to develop innovative and targeted solutions to the energy crisis.”
