In County Fermanagh, Northern Ireland, there is an elderly man who lives in a caravan, along with his cat. He is diabetic. He has no central heating. There is electricity, but getting it running requires him starting a generator, which he is not always able to do.
“He’s in that caravan morning, noon and night,” says Leanne Smyth of Lakeland Community Care. “He doesn’t come out of it. He’s sitting in the dark and he doesn’t have heat because he’s only got an electric fire.”
The man is one of up to 400 elderly people Lakeland tries to reach, all spread out across the countryside, some without a neighbour for miles. The pandemic has meant bus services have stopped or are considered too risky for the over-70s. Family members are unable to visit. During the colder months, Fermanagh’s rural roads get more treacherous. For many people in the county, this was a very tough winter.
Social isolation has affected us all this past year, following Covid-19 into our lives like a grey shadow. The webs of restrictions and worries catch differently for each household, matter in different ways to each person, but we have all felt the effects of seeing fewer people. During the first lockdown, researchers at Queen’s University Belfast found up to 70% of people reported feeling “isolated, left out, or lacking companionship some of the time or often”.
Other studies show loneliness has an impact on both physical and mental health, linking a lack of connection with others to increased risk of earlier death, heart disease, depression and dementia. Even pre-pandemic, isolation was recognised as a growing problem in the UK. In 2018 the government published a plan for tackling the issue and created the role of minister for loneliness.
The UK is more lonely than ever, but for those who already had difficulties reaching others the situation is dire.
“There was a lady who came to our centre twice a week,” says Amo Raju, the CEO of Derby-based Disability Direct. “We had to shut the centre. But those days were her only outings.”
Taken as demographic groups, elderly people and those with disabilities are more likely to suffer from isolation than the population as a whole. Doctors have called for “urgent action” to make sure the benefits of shielding from coronavirus are not outweighed by the problems caused by being alone.
But increasing social connections for people with a disability is not just a question of physical accessibility. “There’s still a societal stigma,” says Raju. “People looking in the street, or not understanding. Sometimes you just want to talk to someone who gets it.”
Raju speaks from personal experience. He has cerebral palsy. “I was the only disabled kid at my school and I was bullied a bit. When I was around 24 I started volunteering here.”
All of Disability Direct’s services are suggested by disabled people and it also runs two commercial arms, offering payroll services to disabled people who employ carers and the Access Card, used to quickly explain and verify a disability to venues, shops and other service providers. Profits are ploughed back into the charity, which is on hand to talk about benefit forms, employment law and other issues. It has a wheelchair-accessible allotment and the day centre, largely for those who have high-end complex disabilities, is all on the ground floor, with automatic doors and facilities for changing and PEG feeding.
During lockdowns, it managed to keep its advice lines open, diverting calls to staff working at home, but the in-person activities needed to change. It started running activities, such as yoga, via Zoom (“and the chatting and catching up in the first 10 minutes is as valuable as the activity itself,” says Raju). It has sent out kits for at-home activities, such as crafts or needlework, and made sure users are aware of other sources of support or companionship in their neighbourhoods. But the two most important adaptations were supplying PPE and food during the early months of the pandemic.
“We all know there was a massive shortage of PPE. A lot of people who use our service employ carers themselves, to come into their home and everyone in that scenario needs PPE. We were able to get that to them.” Even more pressingly, Disability Direct found some of its more vulnerable users were without food. It stepped in to provide this, including fresh vegetables from its allotment, and alerted other groups who could also help.
The elderly people across Fermanagh and Omagh who use Lakeland Community Care’s services also often fall outside of the remit of local mutual aid networks. The area is one of the most isolated in the UK, which also means family members often leave home to find work. “The villages are often 20 miles apart,” says Lakeland Community Care’s CEO Pat McGurn. “People just fall through the gaps, they don’t have a community of people nearby.”
As with Disability Direct, the organisation ran day centres, which provided cooked food and an opportunity for socialising. When the pandemic hit, the team worked hard to assess which of its service users would need the most help, and started delivering meals. Drivers keep to the same routes. This is partly so faces become familiar and better conversations take place, but also because the country roads are difficult to navigate.
“Someone who didn’t know the area just wouldn’t find half the houses,” says McGurn. “And they’re hard to drive on, no matter where you go in Fermanagh you’ve got a hill.” There’s the yearly problem of icy, isolated roads: “Most of our volunteers are out there on their own,” he says. “And not all of them are confident drivers.”
The effects of Brexit also now have to be tackled. “We’ve already seen food prices rise. That has an effect on the people who use our service, who will struggle even more, especially when they are relying on local shops rather than supermarkets who can discount. It affects us, too. If food gets more expensive, it’s harder for us to feed the people we need to. We’ll dig in and carry on because we need to.”
Smyth has made deliveries herself, working alongside the volunteers. “It’s seeing the look on someone’s face as you arrive,” she says. “You might be the only person they’ve seen all week. It means something.”
As the charities “dig in”, fighting rising costs and rising need, the future can seem distant. “The optimist in me hopes that coronavirus will have shown up the vulnerabilities and the cracks in the system,” says Raju. “I hope we can learn from this and put structures in place to help those who need it most, to be a cohesive society where we don’t leave people on their own.”
To support these charities, get in touch with lakelandcare.org.uk or disabilitydirect.com
Inspired by what you’ve read?
In these uncertain times, charities across the UK could use your support more than ever. If you’d like to find out how to volunteer and give your time to help others,
visit: gov.uk/government/get-involved/take-part/volunteer. To find out more about how Barclays is supporting communities, visit: home.barclays/communityaidpackage
