London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine

Cuts in Pension Credit spending as part of the Coalition government's austerity measures in England have a 'significant' link with a rise in death rates among pensioners aged 85 or over, according to new research published in the Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine.

Total spending on Pension Credits (income support payments for low-income pensioners), reduced by 6.5% in 2012. The new study, involving the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine and led by the University of Oxford, investigated why deaths rates for older pensioners, previously in decline, began to rise again after 2010, and whether this trend was linked to budget cuts.  

Pension Credits provide financial support to pensioners on low incomes in two ways: through Savings Credit, which gives those with small amounts of savings additional cash payments; and Guarantee Credit, which guarantees that pensioners receive a weekly income of £151.20 (single person) or £230.85 (for a couple). Both also give entitlements to other benefits, such as reduced Council Tax.

Using statistical models to analyse data from the Office of National Statistics (ONS), the researchers found that the drop in Pension Credit spending in 2012 corresponded with a 1.4% rise in the death rates of those aged 85 or over, compared to 2011. During this period there was also a drop in the numbers of people receiving Pension Credit, which further corresponded to a 2.7% increase in death rates.  The researchers say these two changes in the support system for older persons may account for a large share of the observed rises in old age mortality since 2010. They found similar patterns for both men and women, with weaker links for pensioners aged 75 to 84 and no links for those below the age of 75.

ONS figures show that declining death rates in persons aged 85 and over in England reversed in 2011, and began to rise. By 2013, they were 4% higher than in 2010 among men, while among women they were 6% higher. During this period, average spending on Pension Credit fell from £2,482 per claimant in 2011 to £2,349 in 2013.

Study author Martin McKee, Professor of European Public Health at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, said: "The narrow focus on the state pension in policy debates has obscured how austerity measures may have negatively affected low-income, older pensioners, who are widely believed to have been protected from government cuts. Healthcare professionals have a responsibility to draw attention to the consequences of these cuts, and to advocate publicly for policies that protect some of the most vulnerable individuals in society."

It was not possible to investigate the specific causes of death in this study, since older pensioners often have multiple disorders when they die. However, the authors suggest that financial hardship in older persons could increase risks of poor nutrition and vulnerability to cold weather and flu outbreaks, noting that when the Winter Fuel Payment (another income supplement for pensioners) was introduced in the 1990s, there was a significant drop in death rates.

The study also included researchers from the University of Glasgow and the University of Liverpool.

Publication

Rachel Loopstra, Martin McKee, Srinivasa Vittal Katikireddi, David Taylor Robinson, Ben Barr and David Stuckler; Austerity and old-age mortality in England: A longitudinal cross-local area analysis 2007-2013; Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine. DOI: 10.1177/0141076816632215