Preparing for a future pandemic

One of the many negative impacts of the global pandemic was the rise in the number of unscrupulous energy brokers working remotely and without conscience in order to secure unseen fees on top of agreed contracts.

And with one of the UK’s leading public health experts warning of the cold reality of Covid-19 2.0, there’s never been a better time to future-proof your energy future and find out if you’re still owed thousands of pounds.

“It is worth saying that it [a pandemic] will happen again,” said Eugene Milne, Newcastle’s former director of public health. “The history of humankind is that pandemics happen. We don’t know when and don’t know whether it will be similar.

“Another pandemic could have quite a different profile next. I think the fact that people remember it in their lifetime will be helpful.

“But one of the things I find disappointing is that there were things that we started doing in the pandemic that, from a public health point of view, I would have liked to have seen continue.”

If care homes suffered disproportionally during the early days of the Covid-19 outbreak then staff and residents rallied to provide robust resistance to the pandemic. But Prof Milne fears that the best practice built up since the first cases were confirmed in March 2020 has, in  some cases, been forgotten.

“It’s worrying to think that another global pandemic on the scale of the Covid-19 outbreak could happen any day and we have to ensure our friends in the care sector are prepared as much as possible for something like that happening again,” said Victoria Myers of energy litigation specialists Energy Solicitors Limited.

“Many care homes felt significant financial pressures during the pandemic and many are still trying to recover from a dreadful time. If we can go some way towards helping them plan for a more secure financial future that would be progress — and that should be a future without hidden brokers’ fees from mis-sold energy contracts.”