Randerson Contacts the Elderly

3.53.45pm UTC (GMT +0000) Fri 19th Oct 2007

This Sunday Jenny Randerson AM for Cardiff Central will be hosting a visit from 'Contact the Elderly'. Contact the Elderly groups organise gatherings for frail, elderly people who live alone. One Sunday afternoon a month, volunteer drivers take elderly people on regular visits to hosts' homes. Groups of between ten and sixteen people visit a different home every month and spend a few hours in the company of friends, old and new.

Currently, there are in excess of 200 groups nationwide supporting some 2000 elderly people, but it still has a long way to go to cope with the escalating number of lonely, elderly people, who are simply too frail to go out.

Jenny said 'the problem is vast and rapidly increasing, I am glad that I can contribute towards tackling loneliness it in a more direct way. I also look forward to making some new friends!

"Hopefully it will be an opportunity for me to find out more about what I can do for the elderly and what the new commissioner for the elderly should do once appointed."

Notes:

http://www.contact-the-elderly.org/

Ends/diwedd