As the nation absorbs the details of the government’s widely hyped changes to benefits, I wanted to tell you about a compassionate intervention that could save lives and result in huge financial savings to the government.
Over the last two years we have been speaking with a team from Somerset who have made an astonishing discovery. By turning their hometown of Frome into a ‘compassionate community’, they have been able to transform their community’s health.
It’s all based on science.
Research shows that social connection has a bigger positive impact on health than giving up smoking, exercising or losing weight. The American academic behind this discovery, Julianne Holt-Lunstad, found that social isolation is linked to
- A 32% increased risk of a stroke
- A 50% increased risk of dementia
- Higher rates of depression, anxiety, and suicide.
So, Dr Julian Abel and his colleagues set about putting this knowledge into practice and, from their surgery, established a network of compassionate neighbourhoods across the town. What they found was extraordinary.
As a result of the compassionate communities programme in Frome, emergency hospital admissions in the town fell by 14% during a four year period. During that same period the overall admissions to hospital in Somerset went up by 29%.
Just imagine financial the savings that could be seen if compassionate communities were created across the country.
Compassionate interventions like this cost very little but could provide a huge saving to the public purse as well as dramatically improving the lives of citizens. As Dr Abel told me the first time I met him,
“The starting point of this journey is to be found in evolutionary biology. We survived in small groups of between 25 and 200 people. And we did not just survive, we flourished. We did this through care, kindness, cooperation and compassion. In other words, looking after each other gave us a survival advantage. And that is still true today.”
So, later this week we will be delivering a letter from the doctors who carried out the project to the Department of Health. With 26 million people in the UK experiencing some form of loneliness there is no time to waste. Compassionate connections save lives and money. What was achieved in Frome can be replicated across the country.
Read the Letter
Compassion isn’t just a moral necessity it is also practical. By tackling the isolation that drives so much ill health we can reduce suffering and save money.
Kind regards
Jennifer Nadel
Co-Founder
Compassion in Politics
P.S. If you support and believe in compassion in our communities as much as I do, please consider becoming a member of Compassion in Politics. From just £4 a month you can join the campaign and help us get the message out there.