Dr. Suzanne Denieffe:

I thank the Deputy. That was a really good point. The respondents, the patients and the family carers, we interviewed spoke of the difficulties they had in changing energy provider. They could not understand the contracts and they were not able to understand and to compare the costs. A key point they made was that most of this information is digital and there is very much a digital divide. It is not just age specific. One of the respondents in her 30s talked about the difficulty she had in looking for information online. What happens is that when people perceive this difficulty, they give up and they do not even think about doing it. That is a uniform finding across all of the respondents. We need to make it easier for them. We need to link people up with people they can phone because many of these people can cope better over the telephone, or use local resources such a libraries and information centres more effectively to reach out so they can access this information more easily and understand it and be supported to understand it. Certainly there is a role for public services - for libraries and local authorities - along with the energy providers to make it easier for people.