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Outreach volunteers help combat loneliness with a cup of tea and a chat

Surbiton.com: July 27, 2014 - 5:00am

They have been plugging away for two years, but volunteers visiting isolated people with reduced mobility for a cup of tea and a chat have finally been given funding.

The Alfriston Day Centre team now hope to expand their outreach service across Kingston to combat loneliness among the borough’s older population. The issue has prompted ministers to intervene and one charity to declare a state of emergency.

Care Minister Norman Lamb told the Financial Times Britain had “inadvertently become quite a neglectful society” and that volunteers need to step in. Mrs Double said she feared Kingston Council’s Kingston at Home scheme, which aims to move people out of residential care into their homes, may increase isolation.

Last year nearby Newent House was closed, and residents moved elsewhere or to private accommodation. The council saved about £900,000. Alfriston’s newly-installed outreach manager, Tina Fry, still volunteers in the community, and has visited Gladys Wood in Surbiton for two years.

Read more: 
http://www.surreycomet.co.uk/news/11365871.Outreach_volunteers_help_combat_lonel...

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