Report warned of ‘catastrophic deterioration’ in some disabled people, but ministers still shelved power-cut action

An unfinished government report warned that national power cuts could cause “catastrophic deterioration” in some disabled people who rely on medical equipment in their own homes, but ministers still decided not to draw up plans to protect them.

The “internal scoping paper” considered what advice was available for disabled people who rely on mains-powered medical devices at home and whether there was a need for the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) to issue its own guidance.

But DHSC decided not to draw up any guidance and to leave it to individual disabled people and their “care teams” to draw up plans for “how they can prepare for and respond to loss of power to their home”.

That conclusion was reached even though the document makes clear that some disabled people could be “at very high risk of catastrophic deterioration” if the power cut was unexpected or continued for longer than their equipment’s batteries lasted.

It also warned of the “significant impact on vulnerable people who rely on the use of medical equipment at home for their health and care” if there were national blackouts.

Only last week, the government’s new Disability Action Plan claimed that “Government departments already consider disabled people’s needs in emergency and resilience planning”.

Those taking part in a consultation on the draft plan told the government “there should be better protection for disabled people in future emergencies”, but the action plan offered no significant new measures that would address the concerns raised in the DHSC scoping paper.

The paper also admitted that there were significant flaws with the system of local priority services registers (PSRs), which are supposed to ensure energy companies provide “enhanced support to their more vulnerable customers”.

It warned that there were “barriers” that prevented many of those eligible from signing up to a PSR.

And the paper warned of “an issue” with understanding how many devices supporting “the more critical conditions” were being used in disabled people’s homes.

It said this information “would be critical to have in the event of planned outages so that the government have a clear idea of the impact and where support is required”.

Despite these concerns and flaws within the emergency planning system, DHSC decided not to draw up any plans to protect disabled people who rely on life-saving medical equipment in their own homes in the event of a significant national power outage.

The DHSC scoping paper – Rolling Power Outages: Medical equipment and vulnerable people – was left unfinished last summer, but it has now been released to Disability News Service (DNS) following a freedom of information request.

It is just the latest attempt by DNS over the last 16 months – in the face of government resistance – to find out what plans ministers have put in place to protect people who rely on equipment such as ventilators, oxygen concentrators and dialysis machines in the event of a major blackout.

The report – significant chunks of which are redacted – admitted that “in a national power outage scenario it would not be possible to notify PSR households pre-emptively” that they were about to lose electricity.

And it also admitted that in a “reasonable worst-case scenario” in at least some types of “national power outage”, services such as providing emergency power to those on the PSR who rely on “at home medical equipment” would “not be available due to the scale and complexity of the outage”.

It stated that the “main critical medical risk relating to devices is if a power cut is unexpected or goes on longer than the internal batteries will last”, with those who depend on their equipment for “breathing, renal function, nutrition/hydration… obviously at very high risk of catastrophic deterioration”.

But despite these risks, it said the “main advice” for “people in vulnerable situations” was to register on a PSR, “speak to their care team/GP to put a plan in place to prepare their devices for an outage” and “take individual responsibility for their own preparedness”, such as making sure they “plan and test any contingency plans for critical medical equipment”.

The scoping paper also warned that it was “not clear” if patients were always given advice on power and batteries when they were first handed their medical device “and whether patients know who to contact if they have issues”.

Fazilet Hadi, head of policy for Disability Rights UK, said: “Evidence to the Covid Public Inquiry clearly shows the absence of government planning during the pandemic in respect of disabled people, as did evidence to the Grenfell Tower Inquiry, which led to the recommendation on the need to implement personal emergency evacuation plans for disabled people unable to independently exit high-rise buildings.

“In both these instances, failure to plan led to the avoidable deaths of disabled people.

“With this backdrop, it is incomprehensible that government isn’t prepared to act, to save disabled lives in the event of power outages.

“The responsibility for staying alive should not be placed on individual disabled people or even on private sector energy companies; responsibility should squarely fall on public bodies.

“It is for DHSC, NHS trusts and social care to put the processes in place that protect disabled people using life-saving equipment.

“In light of the priority given to emergency planning in the Disability Action Plan, the government needs to urgently review its current policy of inaction before disabled people avoidably die.”

Despite asking DHSC early on Monday afternoon how it justified not taking action to protect disabled people in this situation, and whether this suggested that the Disability Action Plan section on emergency and resilience planning was not fit for purpose, it had not commented by noon today (Thursday).

Picture: The Department of Health and Social Care’s Whitehall offices 

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