Older people are more at risk from the cold, and more likely to rely on equipment or a landline that needs mains power. They're also often the last to say they need help. Most of the help already exists as free schemes; someone has to register for it, and that's usually you.
If they live with you
- Register them on the Priority Services Register at your address. It upgrades the whole household.
- Their medicines go on the fridge list with everyone else's.
- Warmth matters most. For an 80-year-old, a January power cut can quickly become a health risk, so plan for one warm room, hot water bottles and layers.
- If they use oxygen, a CPAP machine, a nebuliser, a stairlift or a profiling bed, read the devices section today.
- Put the Message in a Bottle in your fridge. Paramedics look for it.
If they live apart
- Do the PSR registration with them on your next visit; it takes ten minutes.
- Fit a key safe so a neighbour or paramedic can get in.
- Sort out the move to a digital landline before January 2027, or their phone may not work in a power cut.
- Build them an emergency box and leave it in the hall cupboard.
- Set up a way to check on them that doesn't depend on them answering the phone.
- Agree with one neighbour that they'll knock on the door in a long outage. Be Ready says this explicitly for anyone living alone.
The Priority Services Register
If you do one thing from this page, make it this. In the Cabinet Office's 2026 survey, 56% of UK adults said they hadn't heard of the scheme before taking part. The Priority Services Register is a free scheme run by every electricity and gas network and every water company. Anyone of pensionable age qualifies, as does anyone with a long-term health condition, anyone dependent on medical equipment, a household with a child under five, and anyone recently out of hospital or bereaved. Register once through the electricity network operator and the details are shared with the gas network, the supplier and the water company.
What it gets them: a 24-hour priority phone line, advance warning of planned work, bottled water delivered to the door in a water outage, alternative heating and cooking in a gas outage, a password scheme so they know a caller is genuine, bills in large print, and, in a long power cut, the network will prioritise them for welfare checks and sometimes hot meals and accommodation.
How to do it (free, ten minutes)
Go to thepsr.co.uk, enter their postcode to find the network, fill in the form. You can do it on their behalf. Northern Ireland uses separate Customer Care Registers with NIE Networks and NI Water. Ask the water company separately if it hasn't contacted them within a month.
The move to digital landlines, by January 2027
Every analogue landline in the UK is being moved to a digital (broadband-based) line by January 2027. Many homes have already been switched without noticing much difference. A digital phone needs mains power, so it stops working in a power cut, which the old copper line didn't.
Providers must give customers who are vulnerable or dependent on the landline a free battery backup unit (at least one hour of 999 access) or a mobile alternative. You usually have to ask for it. If your parent has a pendant alarm or telecare, both the phone provider and the telecare company need to know, because many older alarm units stop working on the digital line.
Medicines and repeat prescriptions
Most repeat prescriptions in England are issued 28 days at a time, which means at any moment your parent may have three days' supply left. Pharmacies may close in a power cut, and roads can be blocked in a storm. What helps:
- Order repeats at least five working days before they run out, every time. The NHS App or the surgery's online form does it in a minute, and you can be set up as a proxy to do it for them.
- Ask the GP whether a 56-day prescription or electronic repeat dispensing is appropriate; both are standard for stable patients and give a month's slack. Controlled drugs stay at 30 days by law.
- Write every medicine, dose and time on one sheet. Put it on the fridge and a copy in the grab bag. Be Ready asks for exactly this.
- A weekly pill organiser filled by you on a Sunday is the easiest way to see what's running low.
Insulin and fridge medicines
Insulin keeps at room temperature for about a month once in use, so a short power cut is not a crisis. Ask the pharmacist for the exact storage rules for anything else kept in the fridge. This site does not give dosing advice.
Oxygen, CPAP, stairlifts and other things that need the mains
If your parent uses home oxygen, the concentrator stops the moment the power does. The backup cylinder the supplier leaves lasts roughly 10 to 20 hours depending on flow; the supplier's 24-hour line is on the machine. CPAP and nebulisers are mains-dependent too. Stairlifts usually have a battery that lets them finish the journey but not run all day. For all of these: register on the PSR as "medically dependent", charge every portable unit before a forecast storm, and never light a candle near oxygen.
For a parent who is medically dependent on power, a proper home battery or a portable power station is worth considering. Talk to the equipment supplier about wattage before buying anything.
A key safe, before you need it
If your parent falls and can't get to the door, the paramedics break it down. A police-approved key safe by the front door, with the code given to the GP practice, the telecare company, one neighbour and you, is the fix. Fit one that is Secured by Design (police preferred); the cheap ones can be opened with a screwdriver.
Supra KeySafe C500 Pro (police approved) adorDefender Pro-TEC key safe ad
Message in a Bottle and the fridge sheet
Message in a Bottle is a free Lions Club scheme the ambulance service actively looks for: a plastic bottle in the fridge door with a form listing medicines, conditions, GP, and two contacts, plus a green sticker on the fridge and inside the front door. Get one from the GP surgery or pharmacy. If you can't find one, a sheet of paper in a sandwich bag in the fridge door does the same job. Add a Herbert Protocol form if your parent has dementia: it gives the police the information they need in the first hour if someone goes missing.
Their own emergency box
Build it at your house and take it over in the car. One clear 35-litre lidded box in the hall cupboard with a label on the front in big letters. Contents:
- Starnearby 12 L water container with tap in my kit ador25 L food-grade jerry can with tap ador6 × 25 L stackable jerry cans ad
- Solar / hand-crank / USB camping lantern in my kit adorflintronic USB lantern ×2 adorLedlenser ML4 (runs on AA) ad
- Mesqool wind-up AM/FM radio, 12,000 mAh in my kit adorDuronic Apex AM/FM wind-up radio adorMesqool DAB/FM solar radio ad
- Anker Zolo 20,000 mAh in my kit adorINIU 20,000 mAh (budget) adorAnker 20K 87W ad
- Little Hotties hand warmers ×10 ad
- NiteSafe plug-in light that comes on in a power cut ad
Checking on them from a hundred miles away
A phone call may not get through in a power cut, because the landline needs mains power and their mobile may be flat. These four checks don't depend on them answering:
- The neighbour, still the most reliable check. Swap numbers, agree they'll knock in any outage over a few hours, and send them a bottle of something at Christmas.
- A smart plug on the kettle. A £10 Wi-Fi plug reports on your phone whether the kettle has been used this morning, and whether their house has power at all (the plug drops offline). It needs their broadband, so it stops working in a long cut, and that tells you the power is off.
- Council telecare. Pendant alarms, falls detectors and, in many areas, automatic power-cut alerts sent to a named contact, for a few pounds a week. Search "[their council] telecare". Means-tested help is often available.
- The Priority Services Register. In a long outage the network operator phones registered customers and, if it can't reach them, sends someone.
Keeping them warm
UKHSA's guidance is to heat the rooms they use to at least 18 °C. In a power cut with gas central heating off (the pump and controls need electricity), the plan is one room: close the door, draw the curtains, layers, a hat indoors, hot water bottle, hot drinks from the camping stove with a window cracked, and move about every hour. Never a hot water bottle and an electric blanket together. If the cut is heading past a day in winter, bring them to you or call the PSR line and say they are vulnerable.
The one-page plan that goes on their fridge
Print the checklist page, fill in the gaps by hand and stick it to the fridge. Name on it: who to ring, in which order, if your parent can't reach you. Carers UK calls this a carer's emergency plan; your council will probably give you a Carer's Emergency Card to go with it.