The aim of this essay is to investigate telephone befriending as a service from the point of view of the current Health and Social Care Policy and to explore how beneficial the service is in alleviating the feelings of loneliness and social isolation.

The first 200 words of this essay...

Telephone befriending service for older people

Introduction

The percentage of older people in the UK has increased in recent years and social isolation in older people has become a soaring public health issue. Evidence indicates that social isolation and loneliness can have a major effect on the health and wellbeing of people of all ages, especially older people. The aim of this essay is to investigate telephone befriending as a service from the point of view of the current Health and Social Care Policy and to explore how beneficial the service is in alleviating the feelings of loneliness and social isolation.

To determine the effectiveness of telephone befriending, the following topics were studied in detail: the definition of vulnerability; what makes older people vulnerable; telephone befriending service to combat loneliness; social policy and law on the service and its effectiveness; and the role of the nurse in promoting and accessing this service.

Electronic searches were run through databases like Medline, EBSCOhost, PsychInfo, CINAHL, Academic Search Elite and the Cochrane Library, looking at these five categories: the term "vulnerability"; population/target group; law/health promotion topic; effectiveness/ineffectiveness of telephone befriending service; and the role of the