Loneliness: how do you know your council is actively tackling loneliness?

The Local Government Association, the Campaign to End Loneliness and Age UK produced this comprehensive guide for councils on tackling loneliness, setting out a framework of interventions for tackling loneliness which could be used to shape local areas delivery plans. 

The report argues that it is important that local areas define the nature of loneliness in their area, and who is at risk, through their JSNA, using local intelligence and national information such as that provided by the ONS and Age UK’s Loneliness heat map. 

The document identifies a number of services and approaches that provide the first steps in finding individuals who are experiencing loneliness and enabling them to gain support that meets their specific needs. These include: 

• first contact schemes
• door-knocking schemes
• targeting people at risk
• formal social care assessments
• social prescribing in primary care
• home from hospital or admissions avoidance schemes
• information about activity to tackle loneliness available through settings such as supermarkets, one-stop-shops, pharmacies and GP surgeries
• direct interventions 
• community approaches