‘I’m scared when anyone says winter’: shocking tales from UK energy crisis frontline

theguardian.com:

A tear rolls down Shama Omar’s face. She is describing the pain of her disabled daughter’s death last year, after 29 years of attentive care. It is a familiar tale of delays and stretched health service resources. “If the GP had seen her on that day, my daughter would have not died,” she says.

Now, she is surviving on one cooked meal every two weeks, deciding on whether to pay for council tax, food or water next. “I need to take cancer medication, which gives me hot flushes but I can’t afford to have the fan on all the time,” says Omar. “I had to think whether to spend £4.60 for the bus here, that could have helped me make meals for two days.”

Omar is among the millions waiting to see what further support government may offer for energy bills. On Friday, the industry regulator will announce yet another rise in the price cap, pushing average household bills to an expected £3,500 a year from October. By January, two-thirds of households in the UK are expected to be in fuel poverty.

Omar sits across the table in a snug booth within a community centre in Leicester. The facility is run by the the ZinthiyaTrust, which was founded by a charity worker, Zinthiya Ganeshpanchan, to alleviate poverty and provide support to survivors of domestic abuse. Its work is part-funded by the British Gas Energy Trust, which is increasingly working on helping its customers, and those of other suppliers, pay their gas and electricity bills, along with support in clearing debts and finding extra cash through benefits checks.

In Leicester, it is immediately obvious that, while the soaring energy bills are often presented as a standalone issue, it is in fact just one in a stack of problems that are mounting up for many people who have complex