The UK isolation crisis: what can we do?

The recent news about the tragic deaths of actor Gene Hackman and his wife, Betsy Arakawa, has deeply affected me.

Arakawa died from hantavirus, probably one week before Hackman, whose Alzheimer's meant he probably didn't even realise his wife had passed away. The thought of this elderly couple spending their final days alone, unknown, undiscovered deeply troubled me - echoing my own experiences of grief. Last year, my father passed away, and I wasn't able to be there with him at the end. Since then, I've wondered many times what those final moments were like for him. Did he feel alone? Was he afraid? Did he know how much he was loved? It's a pain that never really leaves you — the questions, the regrets, and the longing to have done things differently.

Yet, as painful as Hackman and Arakawa's story is, it's sadly not unusual. Thousands of elderly people in the UK, and especially here in London, live and die in profound isolation. Age UK reports that nearly a million older people (aged 65+) in the UK are often lonely with no one to turn to when they need someone to talk to or need help with something.^[1] Shockingly, 1 in 40 older people in England go a week without speaking to a friend or family member.^[2]