Provisional data from a trial in the Somerset town of Frome appears to show that when isolated people who have health problems are supported by community groups and volunteers, the number of emergency admissions to hospital falls spectacularly. During the trial period of three years, emergency hospital admissions in Somerset rose by 29% but in Frome they fell by 17%. (21 Feb. 2018: The results have been published informally, in the magazine Resurgence & Ecologist. A scientific paper has been submitted to a medical journal and is awaiting peer review).
The Compassionate Frome project was launched in 2013 by the town’s GP,
Helen Kingston. Her practice set up a directory of agencies and community groups, which enabled them identify and then fill gaps with new groups for people with particular conditions. They employed “health connectors” to help people plan their care and trained voluntary “community connectors” to help their patients find the support they needed. Sometimes this meant handling debt or housing problems, sometimes
joining choirs or lunch clubs or exercise groups or writing workshops or men’s
sheds (where men make and mend things together). The point was to break a
familiar cycle of misery: illness reduces people’s ability to socialise, which
leads in turn to isolation and loneliness, which then exacerbates illness.
Recent studies have discovered that those with strong social
relationships had a 50% lower chance of death across the average study period
(7.5 years) than those with weak connections. HIV patients with strong social support have lower levels of the virus than
those without. Women have better chances of surviving colorectal cancer if they
have strong connections. Young children who are socially isolated appear more
likely to suffer from coronary heart disease and type II diabetes in adulthood.
Most remarkably, older patients with either one or two chronic diseases have no
greater death rates than those who are not suffering from chronic disease – as
long as they have high levels of social support.
Source: A remarkable experiment suggests that emergency admissions to hospital can be reduced by tackling loneliness, by George Monbiot, The Guardian 21 February 2018 (www.monbiot.com)
