Who are Warm Wales?

Before using Access Elemental Social Prescribing, Warm Wales used Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems. This helped Warm Wales check support was being provided to individuals who needed it, but it didn’t look at the impact that the support provided was having.

Warm Wales wanted to go one step further than this and selected Access Elemental Social Prescribing because our fully flexible referral pathways would help Warm Wales track individual health journeys from start to finish.

They started working with us in 2020 where our social prescribing software made it easier to track and analyse improvements in individuals’ health by analysing different wellbeing scores and presenting all the information in one centralised place.

Following continuous growth since using Access Elemental, Warm Wales has been able to establish multiple partnerships and projects to support more vulnerable energy consumers across Wales to be warmer, safer, and healthier through providing holistic approaches recognising the links between fuel poverty, avoidable health inequalities, and wellbeing.

Some of these projects include:

• Health boards
• Housing associations
• Joint project with New City Homes and Dragons Rugby Team
• Healthy Homes People Lives and Communities (Completed in November 2023 delivered in partnership with Clwyd Alyn

1. Sharing findings

Since working with us at Access Elemental Social Prescribing, Warm Wales has been able to be able to track health journeys in more detail, to demonstrate to other housing associations the impact their advice and support is having on the community.

Warm Wales knows and understands the impact a cold home can have on someone’s physical and mental health. Their work concentrates on looking at all these issues holistically to make a real positive impact in the long term.

To do this they concentrate on three main steps:

• Making sure all homes and nice and warm
• Assessing the health and safety of a home e.g. carbon monoxide levels and fire safety
• Maximising the service user’s income

Through Warm Wales being able to document individuals’ journeys from start to finish they have been able to highlight to housing associations that unless these three key areas are addressed and supported, wellbeing will not improve to the same level it could do in the long term.

Since using Access Elemental Warm Wales has had the evidence to prove this by demonstrating how wellbeing scores have improved since people started using their service. This has helped start and continue the conversations in Wales about the importance of looking at all the wider issues that could be impacting someone’s health and wellbeing and that until those issues are addressed, issues will never be fully resolved.

2. Gained more projects

One of the most exciting outcomes Warm Wales has experienced through being able to share health journeys and the positive impact their services are having on communities is that more charities and organisations have been wanting to work with them.

This has also encouraged more Health Boards and Housing Associations to get on board and work collaboratively with Warm Wales to help make more of a difference.

For example, Warm Wales signed a project with Newport City Homes which both the Health Board and Dragons Rugby Team were willing to get involved with to help ensure everyone is living in warmer and safer homes despite the difficulties from the cost of living crisis.

Warm  Wales has also been able to work with other communities on smaller projects to ensure that help and support can be provided across both North and South Wales.

More recently they have completed the delivery of Healthy Homes People Lives and Communities (HHPLC) which was led and delivered in partnership with Clwyd Alyn to deliver a package of interventions that are tailor-made to the households’ needs to better identify and address root causes.

These objectives were to provide support to 3000 households and train up to 300 frontline workers. As a result, across the 2-year project, they were able to support over 5,500 residents providing 5,043 separate interventions including emergency gas and electric tops, three-way calls to energy providers, and provision of energy advice to name a few.

Our infographic below shows some of Warm Wales’  achievements since working with us at Access Elemental.

3. Improvement in Wellbeing and great service user feedback

One of the other major benefits Warm Wales has experienced since they started working with us at Access Elemental is being able to present all their data and customer achievements in one place to show to other housing associations the benefits tackling fuel poverty can have on individuals and their community.

Since they started working with us, Warm Wales has received over 4200 referrals and held over 7,600 interventions to help individuals tackle fuel poverty, ensure they are living in warm and safe homes, and help prevent homelessness.

Through investing in ways to mitigate poor housing Warm Wales has seen a staggering £521,000 return on investment. The individuals who have sought help through Warm Wales no longer visit the GP or hospital as regularly for respiratory or cardiorespiratory conditions and instead have been able to experience an improvement in their wellbeing.

 71% of individuals feel happier and 74% have had reduced anxiety now Warm Wales has helped them overcome their housing issues.

From these improvements in wellbeing scores they have also been able to receive great feedback from their clients:

I was in a situation with no money and pregnant. I did not know how I could get help to put money in the meter until someone gave me Warm Wales’ number. Being able to put the heating on and boil the kettle for a warm drink helped a lot.

Customer Feedback at Warm Wales

Being able to heat the house for longer eased my depression and I did not have to worry how much it was costing me.

Customer Feedback at Warm Wales

Across their most recent projects, Warm Wales has been able to train 675 people and reach 3,463 households with energy-saving advice, giving a minimum of £173,150 in savings based on £50 per household.

Using the latest information in the Public Health Wales Report – Making a Difference Housing and Health: A Case for Investment, Warm Wales has generated cost savings on heating installation measures of £26,341 demonstrating that every £1 spent on central heating generates 42p in health benefits.

Equally their work over the last two years in their most recent project has generated £38,154 savings in emergency tops up and food support demonstrating that every £1 invested on improving vulnerable households results in £4 of health benefits.

Working with us at Access Elemental therefore has made it easier for Warm Wales to track and present all the outcomes of their hard work to ensure all citizens across Wales are living in warmer, safer, and more comfortable homes.

Not only has this helped Warm Wales promote the great work they have been able to achieve with other housing associations across the local area but it also helps to encourage other housing organisations and local authorities to do the same, so as a unit we can tackle the issues surrounding fuel poverty, cost-of-living crisis, and homelessness collaboratively.

It is clear that as the issues from the Cost of Living Crisis continue, so do issues surrounding housing and individuals being able to afford to live in a warm and safe home.

Through working with us, Warm Wales is continuing to work hard on getting the messages heard and wants to make sure questions about the home are involved in every conversation about health and wellbeing.

Warm Wales recognises that to tackle fuel poverty health and housing must work together. Equally, they know that housing needs to be a part of social prescribing. That way both approaches can work together to tackle one of the biggest determinants of health impacting the whole country.

This will then make it easier and quicker for a referral to be sent through our social prescribing platform, so all organisations that use our software can use it more productively to make better use of the resources available within their community.

This will allow Warm Wales to bring together homes and health and make wider stakeholders realise the correlation between the two, so that more funding can be secured to help improve communities even further.

For more information discover how our digital social prescribing platform can help track your service users’ social prescribing journeys to provide evidence and help show the importance of combatting wider social determinants of health to improve your community’s wellbeing in the long term.

Download our housing guide today and learn more about how social prescribing can help in housing.

Contact us today and let's work together on making the residents in your local community maximise their income so they can be warmer, safer, and happier in their homes.