Meeting of the Parliament 06 January 2016
One of the first challenges that we had in the committee was to come up with a definition of isolation. Members can see in paragraphs 5 and 6 on page 1 some of our thinking about that. For example:
“Professor Cattan considers that whilst it might be possible to measure social isolation, the feelings of loneliness are personal and individual and therefore more challenging to measure objectively.”
However, we found that some witnesses used the terms interchangeably and, for the purposes of the report, we decided to consider both.
As Stewart Stevenson suggested, one person can enjoy their solitude while, in similar circumstances, another person can feel lonely. A minor example of that is, when the committee went to Islay, most of the members and clerks stayed in hotels but I stayed on my own in a tent. That was because I enjoy that and love being on my own. We all got together at certain times.
In recent years, there has been a strong commitment to keeping older people at home and providing them with the care that they need there. Most members across the parties support that concept. However, one of the lessons from the report is that one size does not fit all and home is not always the best place for someone to be.
My mother is 88 and getting quite frail but can still get out under her own steam to the hairdresser and some of the shops, and friends and family visit regularly, so I agree that the best place for her to be is still at home. However, there can come a stage when someone cannot get out at all and they perhaps have very few visitors because their friends are elderly or no longer with them and family may live at quite a distance. In that case, it may be best for an older person to be in a care home or similar setting where there is more company at hand and care provision is also nearer by.
I used to work for a group of care homes. It was not unusual for an older person’s health to improve when they came into a home and got more company. As a by-product, it often took pressure off family members.