BLACKBURN with Darwen Council has been selected as one of three local authorities piloting a Government scheme to use technology and data to reduce loneliness.

The council, as part of a joint programme between the Local Government Association and the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, will work with Pennine Lancashire integrated care partnerships to look at how digital information about local services and community provision can be made available to practitioners and citizens to reduce loneliness.

One of the ideas is an Alexa-style device residents could use to access information about local services and provision in the community to help people feel more connected.

Blackburn with Darwen Council executive member for public health and wellbeing, Cllr Damian Talbot, said as part of the scheme, data will be made available to practitioners and clinicians for social prescribing, as well as being accessible by the general public through mobiles, tablets and laptops.

Cllr Talbot added: “Blackburn with Darwen and the Pennine Lancashire integrated care partnerships (ICP) has a great ambition to develop digital tools to support social prescribing.

"This will enable practitioners and citizens to have access to current data on local services, provision and community assets.

"This ambition is driven by Health and Social Care transformation and the need to support and enable new models of care in Primary Care Neighbourhoods to provide better health outcomes and reduce health inequalities.

"The programme will work with the West Blackburn Primary Care Neighbourhood (PCN) to develop data about hyper-local services and voluntary groups and develop digital platforms to make the data available to local integrated teams that work in the area to support people experiencing loneliness."

Official figures published last year showed loneliness is a problem for more than half of the people who receive social care in Blackburn with Darwen.

In an NHS survey of people using social care, 52 per cent said they had not had as much contact as they wanted with people they like in 2017-18, but it is down from 58 per cent seven years ago, the earliest period with available data.

In Blackburn with Darwen, there were 300 social care users surveyed last year, of which 156 felt lonely, according to Public Health England.

Minister for Loneliness, Mims Davies, said: "Loneliness is one of the most pressing public health issues this country faces.

"​Between 5 and 18 per cent of all UK adults feel lonely most or all of the time, and there is evidence to show that loneliness can be as bad for health as obesity or smoking. ​

"Loneliness can affect everyone from time to time. Life events and personal challenges such as moving home, a new baby, a recent bereavement or social isolation can all trigger a sense of loneliness.

"A key commitment in the strategy is to consider harnessing the power of data to bring people together.

"We are exploring this through Open Data pilots in collaboration with the Local Government Association.

"This will see local authorities and service providers capture information about the services people can access in their local community, including activities and support to help them build social connections.

"This work will help build the evidence base so we can better understand the causes and impacts of loneliness, and develop innovative solutions to tackle it."