Britain’s biggest pensioner organisation - the National Pensioners Convention (NPC) - is calling upon the next government to respond to figures that show that excess winter mortality rates in 2018 to 2019 reached 23,200 in all English regions and Wales.

Excess winter mortality rates continue to be higher in females compared with males, with the figure highest in females aged 90 years and over.

Respiratory diseases, such as pneumonia, remain the leading cause of death.

The figures are proof that older people struggle with poor housing, rising fuel costs, and a basic state pension that is inadequate and bottom of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) league table.

Pensioner poverty is increasing with 2 million pensioners living in poverty and one in three older people living in homes with inadequate heating or insulation - making their homes more difficult to heat or keep warm

Jan Shortt, NPC General Secretary, has said: “The next government must make a commitment to end fuel poverty and ensure that energy companies do not abuse the implementation of the next cap on prices.

“The key to tackling winter deaths is to make sure older people have got a well-insulated, warm home and the income needed to pay the fuel bills.

“This is a basic requirement of what a decent society should do. We need the next government to roll out a more effective programme to insulate homes, building more suitable properties for older people and raising the winter fuel allowance in line with inflationary costs of energy.”

I hope the current parliamentary candidates standing for election in Watford and elsewhere across the Three Counties area of Bedfordshire, Buckinghamshire and Hertfordshire will take careful note of the current winter mortality rates among older persons and that they will pledge themselves to promote policies for the next government to adopt which will save lives among many of the most vulnerable in our society.

John Dowdle

Chair, Home Counties North Region, National Pensioners Convention