BRE housing and health briefing paper 2011

BRE publishes their Briefing Paper which updates the BRE models and calculations using 2011 English Housing Survey and 2011 indicative NHS treatment costs.

In 2010 the BRE Trust published the results of a research project which sought to quantify the cost of people living in poor housing in England to the National Health Service. This was possible because of the availability of information from the English Housing Survey on the risk of a home incident occurring and its likely impact on health, measured through the Housing Health and Safety Rating System (HHSRS), combined with information from the NHS on treatment costs.

Key findings

This Briefing Paper updates the BRE models and calculations using 2011 English Housing Survey and 2011 indicative NHS treatment costs. It also widens the definition from ‘poor housing’ to include all ‘sub-standard’ housing.

The next stage of this project will:

include treatment and care costs beyond the first year.
include other costs to society beyond treatment and care costs – eg the impact on educational and employment attainment of living in sub-standard housing.
report in Quality Adjusted Life Years (QALY’s) as well as cost-benefits, to compare with other health impact research.

Report summary

This paper uses English Housing Survey (EHS)data and the research methodology used for the BRE Trust briefing paper on ‘The costs of poor housing to the NHS’ (see above) to provide an overview of the housing conditions of older people, and to estimate the cost to the NHS in England, of the poor housing occupied by the older population. This older population is examined by four key age bands; 55 to 64 years, 65 to 74 years, 75 years and over and 80 years and over.

It is hoped that this paper will be of interest to various professionals and academia working in the field of housing and/or health, for example:

Health and Wellbeing Boards, local housing, public health, NHS and social care commissioners, to help inform integrated commissioning and service delivery
Local and national providers of housing, health and care intended to improve the health and wellbeing of people as they age, such as Age Concern, Care and Repair England
National policy makers involved in the development of housing, health and social care strategies, particularly those at the Department of Communities and Local Government and the Department of Health.