Agenda item
LONELINESS
- Meeting of Health & Adults Scrutiny Sub-Committee, Monday, 8th January, 2018 6.30 p.m. (Item 4.2)
- View the background to item 4.2
Minutes:
The Committee heard a presentation from Chris Lovitt, Assistant Director Public Health, on loneliness and watched a video on two projects that were delivered in the borough to address the problem.
The first project was some research conducted by account3 on community perspectives on loneliness. Account3 trained twenty volunteers to engage with people over fifty on the topic of loneliness.
The second project was titled Action on Loneliness and was delivered in care homes. This was a befriending scheme based on mutual interests. The project was a success and greatly valued by the care homes, however due to specialist knowledge and time and cost related to supporting volunteers it was not continued beyond the end date.
There was a stakeholder event on the report and recommendations from that event can be found on page 39 of the agenda reports pack.
Mr Lovitt concluded his presentation and asked the Committee for advice on how to take the work forward.
The Chair opened the meeting for comments.
Dr Sam Everington, Chair THCCG, said that the projects addressed the cross cutting theme of compassion and kindness against health and loneliness. He wondered how this kind of work could be made sustainable and suggested it could be embedded into social prescribing.
Other Committee Members considered utilising part of the New Town Hall as a social space for isolated people.
The Chair highlighted the difficulty in defining loneliness. She said that although one might typically think of older people as being lonely, she knew of constituents who were younger and experiencing mental health issue who would also fit into the lonely category.
David Burbidge, Healthwatch representative, spoke about the link between loneliness and death. He used the Nottingham Warden Scheme as a case study and one potential solution to the issue. He said isolated people were visited by a community warden daily. He also said the miners community in Nottingham set up a Welfare Café where people with mental health issues could go for a hot drink and have a friendly conversation on what was troubling them.
He mentioned that many elderly people in the LGBT community in Tower Hamlets are experiencing loneliness and experiencing the additional burden of having to pay the bedroom tax.
The Committee broadly agreed that the Council should keep an eye on the London wide strategy on loneliness and explore opportunities to get involved with it.
There was a discussion on successful community projects that had brought people together, these included: Chatter Natter at St Andrews, Furry Tales – targeting people with dementia, mental health café and gardening allotment schemes.
Chris Lovitt said the presentation heard today supports the idea that loneliness is an issue in the borough and that it is linked to physical and mental health. It was suggested that efforts to tackle the problem should be embedded throughout Council strategies.
Denise Radley said that there is a loneliness strand in the Ageing Well strategy. There was a discussion on potentially linking combating loneliness to social value and corporate volunteering.
The Chair said this was a good introduction to the issue and asked loneliness and homelessness be added to the forward plan for next year.
RESOLVED
To note the presentation.
To include loneliness on next year’s forward plan.
Supporting documents:
- Loneliness, item 4.2 PDF 66 KB
- HOSC powerpoint 8th jan 2018 v1.pdf, item 4.2 PDF 917 KB
- TALKING ABOUT LONELINESS.pdf, item 4.2 PDF 4 MB
- Loneliness, item 4.2 PDF 2 MB