Fixing the dangerous homes lived in by older people would save the NHS and the social care sector more than £1.5 billion a year while delivering billions more in health benefits, according to research.

Removing the most serious risks to people’s health and safety from the country’s poorest quality homes where the head of household is 55 or over could reduce formal care costs by £1.1 billion a year, according to the Centre for Ageing Better. The research also found potential for a further £3.5 billion annual savings in unpaid care costs.

The analysis from the Care Policy and Evaluation Centre (CPEC), based at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE), also found the move would result in savings to the NHS of nearly £600 million a year.

Dr Carole Easton, chief executive at the Centre for Ageing Better, said: “Fixing unsafe homes is a value-for-money solution that will not only help people to live healthier and longer lives, but will also reduce pressures on health and social care.”

While people aged 55 and over live in around one in three of England’s non-decent homes, they account for more than half of the NHS’s annual first year treatment costs (£595 million) for injuries or illness as a result of poor-quality housing, according to new analysis conducted by the Building Research Establishment (BRE) for the Centre for Ageing Better.

Focusing investment just on mitigating excess cold, which claims the lives of up to 9,000 people a year in England and Wales, in every home in the country headed by an older person would deliver an estimated £325 million worth of savings to the NHS every year and pay back the repair costs within nine years.

The Centre for Ageing Better recently launched the Safe Homes Now campaign with eight other charities including Barnardo’s, Asthma + Lung and St John Ambulance.

The campaign is calling for a national strategy to tackle the poor quality of the country’s homes and has challenged the government to halve the number of non-decent homes, which currently totals 3.7 million, within the next ten years.

The Centre for Ageing Better believes that the solution to resolving the national crisis of dangerous homes is the establishment of a national network of local one-stop shops called Good Home Hubs offering advice on home repairs, adaptations and energy efficiency improvements.