I want to talk about something very close to my heart, which I am sure will resonate with you too.

Can we do more to support and empower our senior citizens to make them feel valued and loved? I believe we can and we must.

Silverline, a helpline, was set up by Esther Rantzen in December 2012.  After losing her husband she realised how older people felt isolated and marginalised.  She is a celebrity, yet still felt the isolation. Just imagine what the elderly lady living next door to you feels, when she’s housebound and has hardly any visitors?  Isolation, invisible and forgotten.

Silverline received their 2 millionth call on their helpline last Friday, which is awesome.   When it was launched to support the over 60’s, they started with just 150 volunteers making weekly friendship calls and now they have over 4,000 trained volunteers and 2,000 active friendships across phone, letters and silver circles.

I have been a volunteer with Silverline since 2016.  I did my 65^th call last week – yes it is a small drop in the ocean, but it shows what a difference we can make as a community if we reach out to show we care.  We should be proud that in this country we really care for our senior citizens, but more work is still needed by all agencies and by us all.

Esther Rantzen, through Silverline, has helped so many from feeling isolated and unloved.  We at Ridley & Hall also care for our senior citizens. We believe every citizen has a right to feel valued and that our elderly have a right to dignity and respect. Their legal rights must also be protected and we can help them, as one day, we too will want someone to champion our rights.

 Daxa Patel – Clinical Negligence and Litigation