Being lonely isn’t just a feeling. It is proven to be bad for you. Research shows loneliness is equivalent to smoking 15 cigarettes a day or being an alcoholic, that it’s as harmful as not exercising and twice as harmful as being obese.
When she went to university, Jo Cox was lonely. And while knocking on doors in Batley and Spen, Jo found herself speaking to people who were lonely, too. Once in parliament she sought out the Conservative MP Seema Kennedy and, together with 13 organisations working on loneliness, they set up a commission. After her murder in June 2016, I pledged to carry on Jo’s legacy and I now co-chair the Jo Cox Commission on Loneliness, alongside Seema.
We know quite a lot about the impact of loneliness. Your mind may have conjured up an image of a woman with wrinkled hands in her 80s, sat alone in an armchair. But loneliness affects us all; the Royal Voluntary Society found men reported that the age of 38 was the time at which they had the fewest friends. Loneliness among people in work costs employers £2.5bn a year, a Co-op report revealed. Jo was ahead of the game and her insistence that “young or old, loneliness doesn’t discriminate” is a guiding principle for the commission.
In 2013, one of our partner organisations, the Campaign to End Loneliness, asked GPs about the issue. Family doctors reported that at least one in 10 people attended their surgery mainly because they were lonely. And as Professor Helen Stokes-Lampard warns: “If nothing is done, loneliness will inevitably take its toll on the entire healthcare system.” She calls for GPs to be given “time to care”.
As a society, we need to prioritise reducing loneliness. Politicians from all parties, businesses, healthcare professionals, individuals and communities urgently need to come together to try to understand the causes of loneliness and what we can to do about it.
There are some excellent examples in general practice. In Worcestershire, GPs can refer older patients to a project called Reconnections. The project works with them to develop an action plan based on their personal interests and, together, they put it into practice. The project has a strong business case, too. Using the social impact bond model, it aims to reduce the costs of loneliness to local authority and primary health providers, meaning fewer visits to GPs.
In Leeds, the Robin Lane Health and Wellbeing Centre provides activities and a community cafe. This week there have been singing sessions, a bridge club and a poetry-and-pint night.
Across the country thousands of individuals and volunteers have set up initiatives: the Rural Coffee Caravan in Suffolk, the Leyland Veterans’ Drop-In Cafe in Lancashire. On Friday I’ll be at an event in my own constituency, focusing on loneliness in refugees and the importance of English language classes.
The commission will be outlining its thinking at the end of the year with requests for government and business. But we’ll also be explaining how we all have a role to play. Jo knew this. She said that tackling loneliness is “something many of us could easily help with – whether looking in on a neighbour, visiting an elderly relative or making that call or visit we’ve been promising to a friend”.
In January, we launched the commission with “Happy to chat” badges. Wearing a badge was a way of letting people know – be it a neighbour, friend, or stranger – that you’re there to talk.
But you don’t need a badge to start a conversation. Try it next time you’re waiting in a queue or you’re on the bus. It might be the only conversation that person has all day. Then perhaps we might all play a part in a kinder society, where people don’t feel the need to visit their GP simply to feel connected.