Social

SOCIAL

Rural elderly isolation report

Elderly people who retire to the countryside face spending their final years in isolation as villages suffer cuts to bus services and post office closures, a new report has warned. The study, published by the Age UK charity, found there were 1.2m people older than 50 who were socially isolated in Britain. Almost 600,000 older people left their houses just once a week or less, the survey says. Loneliness and social isolation "can have a severe impact on people's quality of life in older age", the report adds. It also says rural communities have more elderly members than other parts of Britain, with about half of the rural population aged over 45, compared with 36% living in major urban areas. Across rural England, the number of people aged over 65 who need help with basic washing and dressing every day is projected to increase by 70% over the next 16 years. At the same time, the number of cases of depression and dementia are also projected to increase faster in the countryside than urban areas.