A NEW telephone support service for the elderly is to be piloted in the Isle of Man later this year.
The new scheme is the latest project from television presenter Esther Rantzen who visited the island to promote it on Monday.
The former That’s Life presenter whose husband, the producer and documentary maker Desmond Wilcox died 12 years ago, wrote recently in a national newspaper about her own experience of loneliness.
When hundreds of people contacted her with similar experiences she felt motivated to take action.
‘What we don’t want is to see people effectively in solitary confinement looking at the same four walls,’ she said, adding loneliness tended to be regarded by many people as a taboo subject.
The new service called Silverline will offer advice or information and will link people up with other organisations such as social services or support groups within the community, depending on what is appropriate. It is to be widely publicised, and the service will be completely confidential.
Ms Rantzen founded the children’s telephone help service Childline back in 1986 to address the taboo subject of child abuse and give children a means to seek help. That service received 50,000 calls on the first night and was eventually merged with the NSPCC charity.
The Silverline pilot scheme in the Isle of Man scheme, which she describes as a fact-finding mission, starts in November and runs for three months before being rolled out across the British Isles.
‘By coming here to pilot it, we can see what the demand is, and from what we learn from the people in the Isle of Man we can launch it in the UK.
‘The Isle of Man is a discrete community so we can learn lessons here. It’s also a warm and strong community with lots of thriving charities which I know are respected in the UK,’ she said.
The problem became a reality to her, she said after downsizing from the family home last year.
‘I know about coming home to a dark and empty flat with no-one to share a cup of tea with. When I wrote about this I was literally inundated with responses from other people who said how brave I was to talk about it and it became clear there was a stigma attached to it.’
Funding for the scheme, she hopes will come from company sponsorship as well as individuals. The Manx scheme is being supported by accountants SMP.
‘We are getting a warm response from companies which have older clients, like insurance companies. The Department of Health in the UK has given us a donation and I’m hoping the government over here will be able to help us too,’ she said.
‘I am not asking for huge sums of money. Just a little cash or help in kind.
‘The big question is, “can we make a difference?” I want this to set up links and leave a legacy, inspiring other organisations and creating goodwill.’