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The purpose of this paper is to consolidate policy, research, evidence and good practice around strategies tackling fuel poverty and affordable warmth for older people aged over 60 to support the development of more effective services for this life course stage and to tackle physical and mental health inequalities.

The authors consolidate current policy, research, evidence and examples of good practice in exploring effective interprofessional approaches that contribute to affordable warmth for older people through “desktop analysis”. The authors support this with qualitative data from Health and Wellbeing Boards (HWBs), health inequalities and environmental health from research comprising four longitudinal case studies in the Midlands and North of England over 18 months and semi-structured interviews with members and support officers. A total of 50 interviews were undertaken and 55 hours of HWB meetings observed.

There are numerous older people living in fuel poverty. The depth of fuel poverty increases with age particularly the over 75s and physical and mental ill health are affected. There are an increasing number of tools to help estimate health care costs around the cost effectiveness of interventions and there is a real need for more local evidence about what is working well, how and why. However, there is no mandatory requirement for fuel poverty strategies and more creative local strategies are required taking organisational and interprofessional relationships into account. The emphasis in integrated care provides new impetus and scope to encourage preventative services but these new partnerships need to be effective in what is a complex policy environment. There is still a long way to go in places. The challenges of ageing are numerous, complex and not fully understood and sit across multiple policy areas.

Fuel poverty strategies tend to be delivered on a geographical or income bases rather than by life course approach and a focus on older people. We need to focus more specifically on older people, a rapidly growing population and to better understand thermal properties of our ageing housing stock and how best to intervene to protect and improve health and safety. Emerging approaches need to overcome artificial statutory and non statutory divides and move towards sustainable, evidence based affordable warmth strategies for older people to protect and improve health.

Households account for 27 per cent of the UK's total CO₂ emissions therefore addressing housing energy efficiency has become a priority. Low-zero carbon technologies (LZCTs) for both new-build and the existing housing stock are one mechanism to reduce CO₂. A gap in previous research into the subject was identified – the ongoing maintenance or “Asset Management” of LZCTs. This is important, inefficient or ineffective Asset Management may have a negative impact on the sustainability of energy efficient housing stock from a number of perspectives, including physical, social and economic. This paper aims to discuss these issues.

The research presents a sector based study of the English social housing sector with seven individual organisations (known as “Registered Social Landlords”) represented by senior Asset Management practitioners, providing the units of analysis. Semi-structured interviews were conducted to evaluate the past, current and future ability of the sector to successfully maintain LZCTs. The interviews were coded and a theme/sub-theme building process undertaken.

The interview analysis yielded three main themes (Asset Management Planning, Maintenance Skills and Occupier Impacts) and 12 sub-themes. Some of these confirmed findings from the literature review but others had not been previously located including inter-departmental conflicts and occupiers taking responsibility for maintenance.

A paucity of previous work specifically relating to Asset Management and LZCTs in the social housing sector was found. The findings should therefore be of interest to a wide range of stakeholders including registered providers, asset managers, surveyors, developers and policy makers.

This paper seeks to discuss the need for the development of a more flexible measure of energy efficiency based on an ever increasing multi‐cultural society.

Outlines the reasons for the prevalence of fuel poverty among the BME community, using the Pakistani and Bangladeshi communities as case studies. Then considers how culture and tradition among these communities directly impact on their use of their home and how this has implications for Energy Assessment Procedures. Individual cultural issues have traditionally not been modelled in the assessment of Fuel Poverty. These issues include the different use of the dwelling; whereas white householders would generally only use one room as their main living room, it is traditional for those of the BME householder to use two rooms. This is significant in energy usage terms as these rooms are heated to a higher temperature than the rest of the house and therefore affect the amount required to be spent on energy. It is also true that the BME community are likely to spend more on cooking and appliance usage and this should be taken into account to provide an accurate assessment.

This methodology provides a more scientific base for the determination of how hard an individual dwelling is to heat and therefore whether or not an individual household is in fuel poverty.

Evidence has been collected from a number of studies to identify how a BME household utilises space and heating within their dwelling. In order to ascertain fuel poverty these issues have not generally been taken into account, which can lead to inaccurate determinations. However, by the use of BREDEM tools and household knowledge these issues can be assessed accurately.

In debates related to energy poverty, the link to questions of residential segregation remains somewhat peripheral. Because, usually, only energy-poor households are at the focus and residential mobility is not addressed, the interdependencies between households’ energy costs and the residential segregation of cities remain out of sight. Concern that energy efficiency measures could foster socio-spatial segregation in cities has recently emerged in Germany. If only households with higher incomes can afford housing with high energy efficiency standards, whereas low income households tend to choose non-refurbished but, in sum, more affordable housing stock, an increasing concentration of poor households in poor housing conditions would result. German energy efficiency and CO2 reduction policies are relatively insensitive to such questions.

Using survey data from a small shrinking city in Germany, we explore how energy costs are interrelated with residential location decisions and, thus, with segregation processes and patterns. Shrinking cities represent an interesting case because, here, a decreasing demand for housing stimulates residential mobility and paves the way for dynamic reconfigurations of socio-spatial patterns.

We found that energy-related aspects of homes play a role in location decisions. Low income households seek to minimize housing costs in general, paying specific attention to heating systems, thermal insulation and costs. Resulting segregation effects depend very much on where affordable and, at the same time, energy-efficient housing stock is spatially concentrated in cities. These findings should be taken into consideration for future policies on energy in existing dwellings.

Comment on the contribution that housing can make to delivering better health and wellbeing outcomes. More specifically, the purpose of this paper is threefold: summarise recent evidence that makes the case for housing in helping to address health and social care issues; comment on the challenges and opportunities of partnership working; and describe examples of interesting and innovative local joint provision.

Draws on the author’s briefing papers on housing, health and social care for housing quality network, which is a national housing consultancy organisation as well as the author’s role as Chairperson of East Midlands Housing Care and Support, which is a regional housing association.

Collaboration between housing, health and social care is making slow progress at the national level in England. This is despite an ever-increasing evidence base highlighting that good housing can help to address issues, such as delayed discharges. Nevertheless, there are an increasing number of interesting examples of successful local initiatives on housing, health and adult social care. The way forward is to facilitate joint working at a local level.

Focusses on the success of examples of local joint working between housing, health and social care to achieve better outcomes for vulnerable people.

Taking its cue from the UK government's declaration that every new home should be ‘zero-carbon’ by 2016, this paper explores how close a flexible, prototype-housing model might come to meeting this target (accepting that there is currently some ambiguity between the respective official ‘zero-carbon’ definitions regarding off-site renewable supply). The prime aim is to design economically (affordable by housing associations) to the European ‘passive house’ standard of no more than 15 kWh/m2 for space heating and a maximum total consumption of 70 kWh/m2 adding in hot water and electricity. The model also prioritizes generous access to sunlight and daylight, as well as realistic levels of air change in a low-volume, intensively occupied scenario. Associated aims are: a) to meet thermal loads without use of fossil fuels such as gas or oil; and b) to employ architecturally integrated active solar thermal and electrical arrays to respectively meet at least one third of the water heating and electrical loads. Micro-wind generation is excluded from the study as too site-dependent. A subsidiary agenda is to achieve a flexible plan in terms of orientation and access, and to provide utility facilities that support the environmental strategy (e.g. drying clothes without compromising energy use or air quality). The paper goes on to address equivalent prospects for retrofit, briefly discusses institutional and other barriers to achievement, and muses on how much of the balance of the electrical demand can be met renewably in Scotland in the near future.

Sustainably addressing the social and economic demands from an ageing population is a major global challenge, with significant implications for policy and practice. This is resultant of the increasing demand for housing adaptations to prevent increased pressure upon acute health services. Through the lens of institutional theory, this paper aims to explore the levels of joined-up retrofit practice within a Scottish social housing provider, under a constructivist approach.

An exploratory single case study of a Scottish local authority was undertaken. Within this, nine key stakeholders were interviewed, taking a hierarchical approach, from director to repair and maintenance staff. Results were analysed by using Braun and Clarke’s six stages of thematic analysis.

There is a need for greater levels of integration within retrofit practice to not only improve the health and well-being of the older population but also increase efficiency and economic savings within public services. Currently, there are key issues surrounding silo-based decision-making, poor data infrastructure, power struggles and a dereliction of built environment knowledge and expertise, preventing both internal and external collaboration. However, housing, energy and health have interlinking agendas which are integral to achieving ageing in place. Therefore, there must be system-wide recognition of the potential benefits of improved cross-sector collaboration, preventing unintended consequences whilst providing socioeconomic outcomes.

This research provides a new perspective surrounding retrofit practice within the context of an ageing population. It highlights the requirement for improved cross sector collaboration and the social and economic cost of poor quality practice.

This study aims to explore the environmental health role in meeting the housing condition, adaptation and associated needs of older people living in private sector housing in London, including those living with and at risk of dementia.

A multi-method approach was adopted. First, relevant public-facing websites in London were scrutinised. Second, a Qualtrics online survey was designed and circulated to capture relevant information around relevant services offered. Third, seven face-to-face interviews were conducted with front-line practitioners involved in providing housing services to private sector owners and tenants. These were transcribed verbatim and analysed using NVivo software before categorising into themes arising.

An erratic picture emerged around the meaning of “older people” and the services offered. A mixture of organisational arrangements and types of assistance available was reported, with different ways of access and referral to services, with a range of discretionary grants offered including for dementia. Some local authorities offered minimal specialist services, with others providing highly integrated and client-led, flexible interventions to meet a range of needs. Limited inclusion of research, evidence and evaluation of the effectiveness of interventions was reported overall, although client feedback was noted as good where services were provided.

There is very little published around environmental health work in supporting older people living in London and their housing, health and social care needs. This paper captures a snapshot of current and proposed services offered across London for owner-occupiers and private sector tenants, as a basis for further research for evidence-based, effective front-line services going forward.