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MHCLG portfolio extended to tackle loneliness
The Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) will see its portfolio extended to include loneliness in the UK, as part of a new strategy to tackle the issue.
The MHCLG is one of three government departments which will become directly responsible for loneliness, joined by the Department for Transport and the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, to provide a cross-government approach to the issue.
The strategy is the first dedicated government study to tackling loneliness in society and sets out plans to act on the issue both within government and in wider society.
In a foreword prime minister Theresa May said: “Across our communities there are people who can go for days, weeks or even a month without seeing a friend or family member.
“That loss of social contact is incredibly damaging to our humanity and to the health and well-being of everyone affected. Indeed, research now shows that loneliness is as damaging to our physical health as smoking.
“The expansion of social prescribing across the country will change the way that patients experiencing loneliness are treated.”
Under the government’s social prescribing plans, GPs and other public bodies would be able to refer people to a range social activities to offer support for social, emotional or practical needs.
The report stated that “this could include feelings of loneliness, as well as for debt, employment or housing problems, or difficulties with their relationships”.
Through the £3.3m Communities Fund, the MHCLG has funded partnerships to deliver social prescribing interventions.
Noting the work of the South Yorkshire Housing Association (SYHA) in Barnsley, the strategy highlighted how community nurses and GPs worked with service advisors to refer patients to a range of local non-clinical services.
The report found that planning and housing was able to make a significant impact on tackling loneliness and by placing community at the heat of design and planning frameworks, and by researching how community-led housing could reduce loneliness.
According to Age UK, more than two million people over 50 will suffer from loneliness by 2025-26, a 49% increase on the 1.36 million who are believed to have suffered some form of social isolation in 2015-16.
Office for National Statistics (ONS) figures show that people who rent are more likely to feel lonely.
The MHCLG will fund research into the impact of community-led housing and co-housing solutions on loneliness.
The MHCLG will also run a series of industry events, conferences and seminars to promote the role of design in well-being, including tackling loneliness and plans to publish case studies and evidence by the end of spring 2019.
The outcome of these discussions will be used to inform the development of planning practice guidance which will be published to support the recently revised National Planning Policy Framework.
