Written question asked by Jonathan Ashworth (Labour) on Tuesday, 12 December 2017, in the House of Commons. It was due for an answer on Monday, 18 December 2017 (named day). It was answered by Jackie Doyle-Price (Conservative) on Monday, 18 December 2017 on behalf of the Department of Health.

Loneliness

Question: To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what steps his Department is taking to reduce levels of chronic loneliness in England.

Answer

Loneliness is complex and its causes are multi-layered. It may have a number of contributory factors that are both physical and emotional.

A number of the Department’s programmes either directly or indirectly address loneliness in helping people to feel part of the community as well as providing one-to-one support.

For example, social prescribing can tackle loneliness and social isolation through providing a way of linking patients with non-medical sources of support within the community. NHS England is encouraging general practitioners to develop social prescribing as one of the 10 high impact actions in the General Practice Forward View, published in April 2016. In August 2017 the Department launched the Health and Wellbeing Fund 2017-18, a grant fund for voluntary and community sector organisations for social prescribing projects. The application window closed on 21 November and successful schemes will be announced in due course.

Secondary information

Type: Written question
Reference: 118884
Session: 2017-19
Subjects: Loneliness
Link: View this Written question on www.parliament.uk

Loneliness

Secondary information

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