Gordon Brown warns struggling households are having to ask their GPs for nappies

Gordon Brown has warned the cost-of-living disaster is creating right into a public well being disaster as households can’t afford fundamentals similar to nappies.

The former PM stated there’s a “poverty epidemic” as tens of millions of individuals battle to make ends meet. He urged companies to donate items similar to bathroom rolls, cleaning soap and toothpaste to charities to assist households who can’t pay their payments.

Mr Brown stated GPs throughout the UK had been reporting that sufferers had been asking for prescriptions for fundamental childcare gadgets similar to nappies.

“The welfare state has been systematically shredded over the past decade,” he stated. “Instead of being supported in hard times, the consequence is that as many as four million of our fellow British citizens, many actually in work, are now trapped in life below the safety net. This life means being unable to afford basics such as clothing, toiletries, laundry and bedding.

“It means having to cut back on essentials such as food and heating because of cuts to benefits. For 700,000 children, it means having to share a bed. For nearly half a million, it means sleeping on the floor. Far from getting better, the poverty crisis we’ve seen over the winter is now turning into a public health and hygiene emergency with families unable even to keep their children clean.”

Mr Brown urged the Chancellor Jeremy Hunt to order a root-and-branch review of the Universal Credit system. The former Labour prime minister has helped launch new “multibanks”, that are just like foodbanks however the place households can get garments, bedding, furnishings, child and hygiene merchandise. Six are anticipated to be operational in England, Wales and Scotland by the tip of the yr.