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Agenda item

To receive and consider the recommendations of the Cabinet (Minute 615(b)) as an amendment to the following Notice of Motion submitted previously to the Council by Councillor Connett and referred thereto in accordance with Standing Order 8(2), namely: 

‘This Council notes that loneliness and isolation are a public health issue that must be tackled at a local, as well as at a national level. It is estimated one in ten people of pensionable age living in the Devon County Council area are likely to be classed as lonely or severely lonely. And that the Covid 19 pandemic will have increased the chronic nature of this loneliness.

This Council believes:

1.    Loneliness increases the risk of heart disease and puts people at greater risk of blood clots.

2.    Being chronically lonely is equivalent to smoking 15 cigarettes a day.

3.    Loneliness makes people more likely to drink more alcohol, eat more and exercise less.

4.    Raising awareness of the health impact of loneliness is important because it affects older people’s mortality and morbidity.

5.    Councillors and the authority as a whole can play a key leadership role in ensuring Devon is an area in which people maintain and forge social connections.

6.    The Health and Wellbeing Board must play a central role in mapping local services and supporting local interventions to help reduce social isolation and loneliness.

Devon County Council will work at three levels to address loneliness:

One to one:

1.    Improve information and advice on existing services and activities that reduce loneliness and isolation. Make sure this information is available both off and online.

2.    Launch a local campaign to raise awareness of the health effects of loneliness and isolation amongst target risk groups.

Neighbourhood:

3.    Set up a pilot scheme in a selected Division to map local assets for, and barriers to, keeping connected in older age. Involve local businesses, police officers and voluntary organisations in the project.

4.    Involve older people, including those experiencing or at risk of loneliness, in mapping local assets, determining responses, and co-producing solutions.

5.    Support the voluntary and community sector to build referral partnerships with frontline healthcare staff, fire services and social workers.

Strategic:

6.    To take an active interest and role in ensuring the public health problem of social isolation in Devon is recognised and assessed.

7.    To regularly measure loneliness and mapping need through Joint Strategic Needs Assessment and/or lifestyle surveys. Use this to monitor impact of interventions.

8.    To ensure addressing loneliness and isolation is part of any ‘ageing well’ or ‘mental health’ or other relevant priority in the Health and Wellbeing Board’s Joint Health and Wellbeing Strategy.

9.    Protect subsidies for public transport for over-60s, and improve accessibility to public and community transport.

10.Agree a plan, in conjunction with the Health and Wellbeing Board’s Joint Health and Wellbeing Strategy, to take action to prevent and reduce loneliness.

 

Having had regard to the aforementioned, any factual briefing/position statement on the matter set out in Report (CSO/21/1) and other suggestions or alternatives considered at that meeting the Cabinet subsequently resolved:

 

‘that the Council be recommended to support and promote the actions outlined in Devon’s Charter to End Loneliness’.

Decision:

Councillor Hart MOVED and Councillor McInnes SECONDED that the Cabinet’s advice be accepted and that Council support and promote the actions outlined in Devon’s Charter to End Loneliness’.

 

The amendment in the name of Councillor Hart was then put to the vote and declared CARRIED and subsequently thereafter also CARRIED as the substantive motion.

Minutes:

Pursuant to County Council Minute 332 of 3 December 2020 relating to the Notice of Motion set out below as previously submitted and formally moved and seconded by Councillor Connett that:               

‘This Council notes that loneliness and isolation are a public health issue that must be tackled at a local, as well as at a national level. It is estimated one in ten people of pensionable age living in the Devon County Council area are likely to be classed as lonely or severely lonely. And that the Covid 19 pandemic will have increased the chronic nature of this loneliness.

This Council believes:

1.    Loneliness increases the risk of heart disease and puts people at greater risk of blood clots.

2.    Being chronically lonely is equivalent to smoking 15 cigarettes a day.

3.    Loneliness makes people more likely to drink more alcohol, eat more and exercise less.

4.    Raising awareness of the health impact of loneliness is important because it affects older people’s mortality and morbidity.

5.    Councillors and the authority as a whole can play a key leadership role in ensuring Devon is an area in which people maintain and forge social connections.

6.    The Health and Wellbeing Board must play a central role in mapping local services and supporting local interventions to help reduce social isolation and loneliness.

Devon County Council will work at three levels to address loneliness:

One to one:

1.    Improve information and advice on existing services and activities that reduce loneliness and isolation. Make sure this information is available both off and online.

2.    Launch a local campaign to raise awareness of the health effects of loneliness and isolation amongst target risk groups.

Neighbourhood:

3.    Set up a pilot scheme in a selected Division to map local assets for, and barriers to, keeping connected in older age. Involve local businesses, police officers and voluntary organisations in the project.

4.    Involve older people, including those experiencing or at risk of loneliness, in mapping local assets, determining responses, and co-producing solutions.

5.    Support the voluntary and community sector to build referral partnerships with frontline healthcare staff, fire services and social workers.

Strategic:

6.    To take an active interest and role in ensuring the public health problem of social isolation in Devon is recognised and assessed.

7.    To regularly measure loneliness and mapping need through Joint Strategic Needs Assessment and/or lifestyle surveys. Use this to monitor impact of interventions.

8.    To ensure addressing loneliness and isolation is part of any ‘ageing well’ or ‘mental health’ or other relevant priority in the Health and Wellbeing Board’s Joint Health and Wellbeing Strategy.

9.    Protect subsidies for public transport for over-60s, and improve accessibility to public and community transport.

10.Agree a plan, in conjunction with the Health and Wellbeing Board’s Joint Health and Wellbeing Strategy, to take action to prevent and reduce loneliness.

 

and having had regard to the advice of the Cabinet set out in Minute 615(b) of 13 January 2021:

 

Councillor Hart MOVED and Councillor McInnes SECONDED that the Cabinet’s advice be accepted and that Council support and promote the actions outlined in Devon’s Charter to End Loneliness’.

 

The amendment in the name of Councillor Hart was then put to the vote and declared CARRIED and subsequently thereafter also CARRIED as the substantive motion.


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