Boilers on Prescription - Gentoo and Sunderland CCG

Lead service provider/commissioner

Name:

Gentoo

Type of knowledge

Type of knowledge:

Project evaluation

Type of evaluation:

Outcome evaluation

Prevention service description

As part of the governments Pay As You Save, and the department of Energy and Climate Change Green Deal pilot scheme, Gentoo retrofitted nearly 5,000 homes as part of a plan to renovate its housing stock. Initially Gentoo aimed to test new energy saving eco-friendly technologies to enable their customers to be warmer and more comfortable in their homes, however customers reported much wider impact, namely on their health and emotional well being. It was this report back that inspired Gentoo to establish their ‘Boilers on prescription’ project to help build upon the anecdotal evidence and produce correlational hard data.

Sunderland CCG agreed £50,000 of funding to improve the homes of six people who had high levels of interaction with the NHS, in particular those with a diagnosis of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). The scheme is only prescribed, via a tenure blind process, for people with energy inefficient households, (an EPC rating of D or below), with Gentoo making improvements worth £5,500 on average to privately owned or rented homes (registered on the Local Authority’s Approved Landlord Scheme).

Intervention/service type:

Information and advice; Social prescribing; Housing support

Target client group(s):

Older people; Adults with long-term health conditions; Adults with mental health problems; Carers