On Tuesday 8 July, the Adult Social Care Outcomes Framework (ASCOF) includes a new measure assessing levels of social contact by adult users of social care and their carers. Janet Morrison, Chief Executive of Independent Age said:
“We welcome this attempt to measure social isolation however with an ageing population the problem looks set to get worse. We feel these figures may well undercount the true numbers of people lacking social contact. Loneliness has been shown to have a profound impact on physical and mental health. Without delivering on its promise to measure loneliness across the whole population, the government can never really appreciate the millions of people who really need help to combat it”.