Project wins award for “outstanding” work to tackle loneliness

A project to tackle loneliness in innovative ways in Rossendale has been honoured.

Living Well Living Better received an award for outstanding locality work at the recent East Lancashire Clinical Commissioning Group Awards.

Rossendale Council was chosen by the Government in 2016 to receive funding to pilot new ways of improving the health and wellbeing of local communities. The council set up a partnership which chose to focus on the issues of isolation and loneliness in adults, establishing the Living Well Living Better project.

The project ended last month and Councillor Barbara Ashworth, Rossendale Council’s Portfolio Holder for Health, Housing, Communities and Customer Service, said:

Feeling isolated can have a massive impact on someone’s mental and physical wellbeing. This award recognises all the people in the borough who are working in innovative ways to tackle loneliness and make lasting changes.

Living Well Living Better has been a great example of partnership working and the issues of loneliness and social isolation are now firmly on the agenda of organisations in Rossendale.

Although the pilot has ended, I hope that many of these projects which have made a real difference to people’s lives will continue.