2m lonely older people ‘within a decade’

ArOUND two million people over 50 will be suffering from loneliness by 2025, according to a report yesterday.

This compares with around 1.4million in 2016/17 – an increase of almost half as many in less than a decade, Age UK said.

The report warns the rise in loneliness, reflecting the rapidly ageing population, will have ‘serious knock -on consequences for physical and mental health, and therefore for the NHS, unless we take action now’.

The charity called for taxpayer -funded initiatives to alleviate loneliness, including giving every lonely older person an adviser.

The report said the main causes of loneliness among older people are having no one to talk to, the death of a husband, wife or partner, poor health and ‘if they don ’t feel they belong to their neighbourhood’. Money issues can also contribute to loneliness, it added.

A report from the Office for National Statistics earlier this year said teenagers and people in their early twenties are three times as likely to be lonely as older people.

Age UK questioned the ONS figures, saying loneliness ‘affects people of all ages to a similar degree’ but that ‘ different circumstances prompt it, depending on age’.