The Silver Line – Our Mission Statement

The Silver Line Helpline provides three functions to support older people:

• a sign-posting service to link them into the many, varied services that exist around the country;
• a befriending service to combat loneliness;
• and a means of empowering those who may be suffering abuse and neglect, if appropriate to transfer them to specialist services to protect them from harm.

The signposting function will be undertaken by staff working from a very full database of local provision.

The befriending function will be undertaken by trained volunteers.

The abuse and neglect prevention will involve calling upon the specialist support of organisations such as Action on Elder Abuse and Social Services, if appropriate.

Older people

The service is free of charge.

tel: 0800 4 70 80 90

email: info@thesilverline.org.uk

There are 10 million older people (over the age of 65) living in Britain today.  Many of them (51 per cent of people over 75) are living alone.  Those working in the statutory and the voluntary sector are deeply concerned about the impact of isolation and loneliness on older people, because it has been shown to shorten life, creating depression, hastening the onset of dementia, and causing physical effects such as malnutrition.

And yet there are many services around the country which could counteract these effects, if older people were linked into them.   40% of older people, according to a 2011 survey do not know where to turn for help.