To ask the Minister of Health (i) for his assessment of the prevalence of loneliness in society; and (ii) what steps he is taking to address it.

The rising prevalence of loneliness, especially amongst older people and more recently younger people has increasingly been identified in practice and in research. In 2020, Northern Ireland Council for Voluntary Action (NICVA) research concluded that one in twenty people experience chronic loneliness in Northern Ireland.

It is recognised that as a society we need to give the issue of loneliness greater priority given its impact on society’s health and wellbeing. Whilst Northern Ireland does not have a specific strategy to address loneliness, it is acknowledged as an important but cross cutting issue which no one organisation or Department can tackle alone.

In July 2020, the Department of Health completed an initial scoping study involving DoH policy leads, HSC Trusts and other HSC organisations to gather information on what policies and activities were in place to help tackle loneliness from a health and wellbeing perspective.

This has resulted in the setup of a HSC Loneliness Forum that includes representatives from the five HSC Trusts, NISCC, PHA, DOH policy leads, DEARA and others. The forum will promote collaboration between existing networks and agencies and will also support new work in this area.

This will complement the work being done already in the DoH on key policy areas that contribute to tackling loneliness with such the Reform of Social Adult Care; the Social Work Strategy and the Mental Health Strategy