Silver Line Telephone Friendship Service for Promoting Health and Wellbeing

This essay focuses on the Silver Line telephone friendship service and its impact on promoting health and wellbeing in the UK's ageing population. It discusses the evidence linking social isolation and loneliness to various health conditions and how the Silver Line helps combat these issues. The service offers a friendship service, signposting service, and empowering service via helpline, Silver Line friends, KIT, caller care, and Silver Circles. The essay concludes that the Silver Line is a successful method in accessing the loneliest and socially isolated individuals.

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Table of Content.
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................1
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................1
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................2

INTRODUCTION
As around nineteen percent UK population is ageing. The society has still the inaccurate
assumption about the ageing and the experience of ageing in UK is getting worse. As ageing
people face lot of challenges such as poverty, discrimination, loneliness as well as poor health.
The purpose of this essay is to focus on silver line telephonic friendship service. This service
help the people who feel loneliness. As loneliness is predominating problem in older people than
the general population. Nearly half of the population of UK aged above 70 live on their own due
to which they face many other problems such as increase risk of dementia, stroke as well as heart
disease. The essay describe about the silver line, it is a service which link the older people via
one memorable number to many other existing services for older people in UK.
MAIN BODY
Silver Line telephone friendship service
The current scenario of UK population health impact on social isolation, loneliness along
with the other aspects. The social isolation is the major risk factor for human mortality,
morbidity as well as well-being. It is an emerging potential risk factors for mortality. As term
loneliness or social isolation are frequently interchangeable. The social isolation occur due to
lack of social contact and it is caused by an absence of relationship with family friends and from
the social community. The social isolation and loneliness is a complex phenomenon. The social
isolation, loneliness and some other social connection can affect certain health conditions as well
as affect the quality of life. This essay is focus on the evidence base impact, as social isolation or
loneliness affect on a wide range among the old age population. It affect physical, cognitive as
well as mental health.
Impact on health outcomes
There is a strong evidence which linking that social isolation and loneliness are one of the main
cause of increasing mortality rate in older age population in UK. There are following evidence
which affect on different aspects of social connection on health of old age people such as
Cardiovascular disease and Stroke, Dementia, Depression and some chronic health conditions.
The social isolation and loneliness extensively cause the cardiovascular disease and
stroke in old age population of UK. A meta-analysis data set show that the poor social
relationship has increased the risk of heart disease in older people. The data from the UK found
that the lonely and isolated person were increased risk of acute myocardial infarction and stroke.
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For example, a patient after myocardial infarction have consistently found low social support,
poor medical prognosis are related to increase the mortality rate in older people as they need
proper support for care.
There are numerous observation has been examined which are related to loneliness can
increase the risk of dementia and cognition in older population of UK. A meta-analysis found
that more than 2.3 million population are living alone. They have low or limited social network
as well as poor social support are the major risk factor for dementia. Social interaction are
helpful in enhancing the cognitive capacity by activating and maintaining the efficiency of brain.
In addition to this the high level loneliness in older people life is related to increase the risk of
cardiovascular. It also related to increase the risk of neurodegeneration in hippocampus along
with other brain region which cause Alzheimer's and vascular cognitive impairment.
The loneliness or limited social interaction may also affect the health- related behaviours in both
positive or negative way. Their is an evidence which particularly related to social isolation that
the older people who have limited social interaction are more likely to have less healthy or
quality life such as they follow poor diet, increase tobacco or alcohol use as well as lack of
physical activity.
The social isolation and loneliness increase the risk of elder abuse which can affect an
old age people health such as affect on physical health, mental health as well as the quality of
health. The limited social interaction individuals are vulnerable to both as get abused from others
or become an abusers. In addition the elder abuse can lead to housing disruption worsening
physical health and in extreme situations it may sometimes cause an individuals death.
The silver line is a national confidential phone service for older people which link older
people via one memorable number to many other existing services for older people in UK. It
offers the silver letters service, caller care as well as silver circles. The silver line service used
mixed methods research, as it is a combination of both qualitative and quantitative approach. It
provides the more comprehensive evidence than using alone. The most silver line users have
little or no contact with friends as well as with family. The research is concluded that The Silver
Line is one of the successful method in accessing the loneliest and socially isolated individuals.
The reason people using The Silver line include lack of friends and family, being house bound as
well as disabilities. The service providing the opportunity for companionship, the silver line staff
identify the diverse circumstance and needs of callers as well as the staff responding the callers
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in very appropriate and well manner. The silver line has three key functionalities which include a
friendship service to battle loneliness, a signposting service, empowering service. These
functionalities are delivered via helpline, silver line friends, KIT and caller care as well as silver
circles. In helpline, the caller who dial The Silver Line number firstly get the through the
helpline staff who had a specialist training for attending the call. The helpline staff provide the
caller appropriate advice, information and supports when ever required. They also tell the callers
about the other services such as silver line friends. The silver line friends service is an important
part of The Silver Line. The silver line friends offer the caller a chance to get a volunteer friend
who call the caller each week at agreed time. In UK, The Silver line operates at three inter-
connected trends such as an ageing population, rising costs of health and social-care as well as
increasing volunteers. The UK population has significantly change by two demographic trends. It
include the ageing of population as whole as well as ageing within the older population itself.
CONCLUSION
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REFERENCES
Books and Journals:
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