Government vows to 'significantly' reduce number of lonely by 2030

With the "start of a new decade, government’s goal remains to significantly reduce the number of lonely people over the next ten years", Baroness Diana Baron, minister for Civil Society has said in a new loneliness report published today.

The minister said tackling loneliness "will require long-term action from government, business and civil society and a change in public attitudes". "Everyone has a role to play in building a national conversation on loneliness".

With as much as 18 per cent of the population "often feeling lonely", the government’s ‘Loneliness Annual Report January 2020’ announced progress to tackle loneliness involving measures brought by government departments and voluntary organisations.

These include:

• From September, school children are to be taught about loneliness.

• The Department for DCMS has launched the ‘Age-Friendly and Inclusive Volunteering Fund’, in partnership with the Centre for Ageing Better. Five grantees will develop new ways to encourage older people to take part in voluntary activities.

• A letter sent by the Department for Work and Pensions to bereaved people who use the ‘Tell Us Once’ service to notify the government of a death, has been amended to include suggestions on how to get support for loneliness.

• Bosses from 30 organisations, who employ almost 1 million people, came together to discuss how employees can overcome loneliness. Chaired by the Campaign to End Loneliness, the Employer Leadership Group will publish a good practice guide in Spring 2020 to show organisations how to help staff at risk of loneliness.

Car service helps lonely blind woman become cricketer

A £11.5 million Building Connections Fund is a partnership between government and the National Lottery Community Fund. In 2018, grant awards up to £100,000 were made to 126 organisations across England.

Paul Jones, chief officer at the charity, said the Building Connections Fund is "making a massive difference for individual people living in Kirklees".

"The Volunteer Car Service is helping individuals overcome personal transport barriers and attend groups or appointments that had previously been impossible to attend."

Carly is a 31-year-old blind woman who had low self-confidence and had felt anxious about going out.

The Denby Dale Centre is a charity in Kirklees, West Yorkshire offering community transport for lonely people. The Volunteer Car Service helped Carly out of her isolation, and she became a capable international sportswoman.

The car service took her to a blind cricket group, where she developed her skills and was selected to play cricket for the county team. She played in Leicester and under selection to play for England.

The new report on tackling loneliness, follows the publication of the government's Loneliness Strategy in 2018, which featured 60 policy promises from nine government departments.

Other measures include:

• The Home Office work with Royal Mail and councils to trial a scheme which involved postal workers visiting isolated people aged 65+ twice a week to identify those who reported feeling lonely.

• The National Trading Standards Scam Marshal scheme (commissioned by the Home Office) to help lonely older people fight back against financial abuse scams. The scheme was rolled out to over 1,000 people last year.

• An expansion of social prescribing with the recruitment of 1,000 extra social prescribing link workers within primary care networks by April 2021.