West Berkshire residents turning off personal medical equipment to save money

Residents are turning off medical equipment to save on electricity as the cost of living crisis worsens, according to the West Berks Foodbank manager.

Fran Chamings said people are turning off their CPAP machines – a motorised device which supplies purified air through a tube to a sealed mask – as well as their fridges and freezers to keep their energy bills down.

Residents were hit with a 54 per cent increase in their household energy bills in April this year, and a further sizeable increase is expected in October.

The price of fuel meanwhile has also risen from an average of 130p per litre last year to around 193p today, while the rate of inflation now stands at around nine per cent.

Particularly vulnerable are those on fixed incomes, such as pensioners, the disabled and families with both parents working but where child care costs don’t make working more hours cost effective.

Mrs Chamings said the current crisis – which originally began when the £20 universal credit uplift was removed in October but accelerated in April – was the worst she had seen it in the sector, and that people were “scared because they can’t see a way out of it”.

She said: “They can’t see how they’re going to put food on the table.

“We’re being asked for food that can be cooked in microwaves rather than cooked in ovens, or things that can be made in kettles like pot noodles or super noodles, where the nutritional value is awful.

“People are scared because what’s going on is life-changing.”

Demand at the foodbank has increased by around 50 per cent on last year, while donations are “through the floor” as residents struggle to find the spare change to donate.

The foodbank is also “inundated” with requests for school uniforms. These requests are referred to the TUXchange, a school uniform exchange service, however there is a shortage as parents choose to hold on to uniforms for longer.

Unlike previous years, Mrs Chamings said she and other foodbank managers felt they no longer had the answers to deal with the crisis after exhausting many avenues.

She continued: “We were able to signpost people to other services, like income maximisation checks, but we’ve done all that.

“We’ve applied for all the grants, we’ve gone to all the small funders and asked for replacement mattresses or white goods and even those charities don’t have the funding to support us.”

She said the Government needed to do more to help, saying the current infighting in the Conservative party was “disastrous” because “people are in real crisis”.

Asked what the foodbank’s priorities were for donations, Mrs Chamings said: “Everything.

“We are incredibly grateful for all the generosity of donors who are still trying their hardest.

“It’s about reminding people it’s really tough out there.”