The Silver Line
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| Founded | 2012 |
|---|---|
| Founder | Dame Esther Rantzen |
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Area served
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United Kingdom |
| Services | Telephone helpline for older people |
| Website | www |
The Silver Line is the only free confidential telephone helpline offering information, friendship and advice to older people in the United Kingdom that's available 24 hours a day.
The helpline was established by Dame Esther Rantzen, who founded the children's helpline ChildLine in 1986. She wrote about her loneliness following the death of her husband Desmond Wilcox in 2000, and described loneliness among the elderly as "a creeping enemy" which "erodes confidence".
Dame Esther was invited to a conference addressing the isolation of elderly people held by the Campaign to End Loneliness and the Centre for Social Justice. This led to a meeting at the invitation of Paul Burstow MP, then a Minister in the Department of Health, to discuss the creation of a helpline.
Dame Esther and Burstow are listed among the trustees of The Silver Line helpline. Others include the CEO of Action on Elder Abuse, the CEO of Anchor Trust, Lady Susan Chinn, and Professor Patrick Geoghegan. The CEO of The Silver Line is Sophie Andrews. The helpline is a charity registered in the UK (Registered Charity no 1147330 in England and Wales, registered in Scotland as charity number SCO44467. Company No 8000807)
The helpline aims to provide the following services:
Callers may be directed to organisations such as Contact the Elderly, Samaritans, WRVS or the Townswomen's Guild.
A 12-month pilot of the helpline service covering the North of England, the Isle of Man and Jersey was launched in November 2012.
Initially the pilot was launched in Greater Manchester and the Isle of Man. However, funding from Comic Relief allowed an extension of the pilot to cover North East England and Jersey in 2013. 8,000 calls were answered during the pilot period, with the majority of callers aged between 60 and 80.
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