Yorkshire and Humber has highest rates of pension-aged people dying in poverty

A new report has been released by Marie Curie

Author: Karen LiuPublished 12th Nov 2024

We are hearing nearly a quarter of pension-aged people in Yorkshire and the Humber died in poverty.

It is almost three quarters higher than the lowest region in the UK, according to Marie Curie.

The figures come as it is revealed over 300 people died in poverty every day in the UK last year, an increase of almost a fifth in four years.

The Dying in Poverty 2024 report from Marie Curie, which is based on research from Loughborough University, comes as the end of life charity calls on the Government to guarantee a pension-level income for working-age individuals with less than 12 months to live, and to implement a social tariff to reduce energy bills for people nearing the end of life.

The report also highlights alarming figures on fuel poverty, with this being the case for 128,000 dying people in 2022—over one in five of all deaths that year. Of these, 110,000 were aged 65 and over, representing 86% of those affected.

The report also shows that people who die before reaching retirement age are at a much higher risk of dying in poverty than pensioners (28% vs 16%).

This is partly because dying people of working age often experience a “double impact” of lost income and rising costs, particularly energy bills. And partly because the State Pension is significantly more generous than working-age benefits.

Calculations within the report show that a social tariff that halves energy bills could lift as many as 54,000 (45%) dying people out of fuel poverty.

Victoria Wharton, Associate Director for Strategic Partnerships and Services in the North East and Yorkshire at Marie Curie, said: "We've gone through very difficult times in the last few years. People are facing huge strain on existing incomes but also I think there are more people dying, so we're seeing that the rates of people, particularly people dying young increasing, the benefit system doesn't help people.

"We know that people of working-age are significantly risk of dying in poverty and that's because there's usually an impact or a double impact of a loss of income, sometimes two incomes. People are having to give up work to care alongside the increasing living costs associated with terminal illness.

"We believe our demands are realistic. We believe that the cost of actually giving people pension-level support in the last year of life would have a really minimal impact, as low as 0.1 percent of current spending on state pension."

Simona’s husband, David, died in June 2024 from a stage four glioblastoma, six months after he was diagnosed. She said:

“David had to stop working straight away after his diagnosis, because he couldn’t walk or move. And I had to stop work to be his full time carer. The amount of money we had through state benefits was barely enough to get us to the end of the month.

“His condition meant that he was constantly cold, so we had to keep the heating on all the time. We discussed this with our energy companies, and the only things they provided was an electric blanket and a discount of £200 – it wasn’t enough.

“All the medical equipment David needed was electric. It really raised the cost of our energy bills, and I still have an outstanding bill of £5,000 from the energy company.

“When David was on oxygen towards the end of his life, I spoke to the provider as the oxygen machine needed to be on all the time. They told me they would refund the cost of running the equipment, and later I had a cheque through the post from them for £13.”

Hear all the latest news from across the UK on the hour, every hour, on Greatest Hits Radio on DAB, smartspeaker, at greatesthitsradio.co.uk, and on the Rayo app.