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Scotland’s terminally ill facing deepening end-of-life poverty 

  • Area of Work: Policy and Research
  • Type: News Item
  • Published: 24th November 2025

New report warns thousands spending their final months in financial hardship and fuel poverty

Marie Curie and Loughborough University have released Dying in Poverty 2025, a new report showing that thousands of people with terminal illness in Scotland are spending their final months in poverty. 

The report finds that over 6,500 people die in end-of-life poverty each year and 7,700 die in fuel poverty, driven by high energy costs and the need to power essential medical equipment. This often forces people to make impossible choices in their final months. As one account described; 

“Stacey … needed to choose between paying for the heating or paying for a taxi the next morning to go to the hospital for chemo. She chose chemo, and one night she woke up and her glass of water was frozen on the nightstand. It was that cold.” 

The report highlights how experiences like Stacey’s remain all too common with rates of end-of-life poverty not reducing since 2019. The findings reveal that the situation is particularly severe in Glasgow, West Dunbartonshire, Dundee, Inverclyde and North Ayrshire, where poverty levels at the end of life remain significantly worse than the national average – highlighting a causal link between existing socio-economic deprivation and end of life poverty. 

The report also shows that end-of-life poverty not only affects individuals but also deepens wider social and economic inequalities. Working age families with children face falling income and rising costs linked to terminal illness, pushing many into hardship and worsening child poverty. Inequalities also persist within end-of-life experiences with nearly half of Black and Asian working age people die in end-of-life poverty, compared with 25% of white people. 

The report calls for a whole-system, public health approach and outlines key recommendations, including; 

  • Guaranteeing working age people with terminal illness an income at state pension level 
  • Boosting uptake of disability and childcare benefits 
  • Addressing barriers faced by minority ethnic communities 
  • Introducing a social energy tariff offering at least a 50% bill reduction for people with terminal illness. 

The authors warn that without urgent action, thousands will continue to face financial hardship at the end of life. 

You can read the full report at Marie Curie

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