“Councils are ideally placed to lead on social prescribing and tackling loneliness in partnership with voluntary sector organisations, and this funding will help them deliver these vital services."
Responding to the Government’s new fund for local organisations tackling loneliness, Chairman of the Local Government Association’s Culture, Tourism and Sport Board, Cllr Gerald Vernon-Jackson, said:
“Councils are ideally placed to lead on social prescribing and tackling loneliness in partnership with voluntary sector organisations, and this funding will help them deliver these vital services.
“Many council services - including libraries, museums and public parks – reduce the need for residents to visit their GP or use other health services.
“If we are to achieve the stated aims and ambitions in the Government’s green paper on prevention, to make sure people are able to live for longer in good health, councils need adequate and sustainable long-term funding for their facilities and initiatives upon which social prescribing relies.”
Notes
- On 22 April 2020, the LGA will be publishing a handbook for councils on using cultural and leisure services to support and deliver social prescribing.
- As part of the LGA’s improvement and development offer, it has created a ‘standardised’ way for local authorities to collect data which helps both residents and the sector to access information. The LGA is running open data pilots with three councils – Hull City Council, Blackburn and Darwen Council and Elmbridge District Council.
- The LGA and the Campaign to End Loneliness and Age UK produced a comprehensive guide for councils to tackle loneliness in 2016 – ‘Combating loneliness: A guide for local authorities’
- The LGA produced a guide for councils to check if they are actively tackling loneliness as part of its development offer in 2018 - ‘Loneliness: how do you know your council is actively tackling loneliness?’