ALONE have released a Covid response report detailing their response to vulnerable older people during the pandemic. This has been a particularly difficult time for older people due to restrictions, social isolation and lack of support/services such as AA, medical appointments etc. The report reveals that between March 9th and May 31st there was 22,272 calls to ALONE national support. Additionally, there was 86,402 calls providing active supports to Older People with an identified need. Overall 12,011 Older People have been supported and of those, 609 vulnerable adults were identified and are receiving an enhanced level of contact and support. Throughout this period there were 465 referrals to other services. 166 Pendant alarms and 338 mobile phones were supplied to older people to reduce isolation.
ALONE received €7,500 in funding from The Community Foundation for Ireland’s Covid-19 Response Fund which was used to create, develop and deliver a standardised, quality, interactive online training course to COVID - 19 volunteers nationwide. This will improve their volunteer retainment rate, improve staff support and ultimately improve support for older people availing of their services.
76% of those receiving support live alone with 28% between the ages of 75-90. 26% are between the ages of 70-75 and somewhat surprisingly 24% are under the age of 60. ALONE CEO Sean Moynihan said: “The people accessing our services are equally represented across the whole country. Our focus is supporting older people to age well at home, yet over 20 % of the people coming to us are under the age of 60. We will be analysing this data in the coming weeks to identify the drivers such as disability.”
Over the last week of May the biggest by some distance issue that concerned older people was emotional needs/loneliness, amounting to 40% over this time period which shows us how difficult this pandemic has been for older and vulnerable people. In order to combat this, ALONE staff and volunteers spent 369 hours talking to clients over the month of May. See the report here.