Podcast: Can a robot make you laugh? Esther Rantzen says technology can't stop loneliness this Christmas

In an exclusive interview, Dame Esther Rantzen has said she believes technology has its limits when it comes to care - doubting care robots, robopets or Alexa can banish the loneliness facing too many elderly and disabled people this Christmas. Esther Rantzen speaking as a guest on the Let's Talk About Care podcast. Credit: Esther Rantzen

“I say contact is not the same as company” says veteran broadcaster Esther Rantzen, speaking as a guest on carehome.co.uk’s Let’s Talk About Care podcast.

This festive period, the founder of The Silver Line, a 24-hour helpline for lonely, older people, will again volunteer to phone people who, the charity knows, will have no family or friends visiting them at Christmas.

’Nobody to do nothing with’

“What people really tell me they want is a cup of tea and a laugh. Now a robot can make you a cup of tea, does a robot really laugh? Does a robot make you laugh?

“I won’t say technology never has a role to play, I think it does” but she warns “If you want to make someone laugh you really have to be there.

“One definition of loneliness is to have plenty of people to do something with and nobody to do nothing with.”

The Silver Line helpline receives over 10,000 calls a week, and its befriending services supports 2,000 older people.

Dame Esther, who is also the founder of Childline, a 24-hour helpline set up for children, said the abuse she experienced as a child herself had not influenced her decision to set up Childline.

She admits the loneliness she felt after her husband's death led to her establishing The Silver Line helpline.

“There is, I find, a hopelessness in some older people because they don’t feel they have anything to look forward to.”

Care homes must let couples live together

This Christmas, many care homes are opening up their doors to lonely older people and the disabled living home alone.

When it comes to good care, she believes care homes should help couples to live in the same care home and share a room, even if they have differing care needs.

“If towards the end of their lives you’ve got a couple with differing needs but who still love, respect and need each other, then we need to regard that as one of the very important needs that we as a society need to provide.”

The Silver Line service costs £4m a year to run but a five-year £10m lottery grant came to an end last year, making it tough for the charity to find the money to fund every call. The charity recently became a subsidiary of the charity Age UK, to secure the long-term survival of the helpline.

The Silver Line’s partnership with Age UK was needed she says, because “older people do not have the sort of pull on the public compassion that animal charities do”.

Ageism a hate crime?

The Silver Line is there for lonely people this Christmas. Credit: Bosnian/ Shutterstock

Calling for the new government to appoint a minister for older people, she describes the political parties’ election promises such as the Conservative promise of more police and Labour’s free personal care offer and as ‘bribes’.

Asked about Labour’s response to accusations of anti-semitism in its party, she said that as a Jew “it worries me. All forms of racism worry me.”

The 79-year-old says “I think that ageism is in its way as dangerous a prejudice as any of the others and I do think that it causes real injustice and sometimes means that crimes are not properly pursued and investigated.”

With the general election on 12 December, Esther Rantzen admits “The one thing you do know about older people is they do tend to vote.”

Faced with an epidemic of loneliness amongst elderly and disabled people, Esther Rantzen recalls the words of one lonely man who said: "When I get off the phone to The Silver Line, I feel like I've joined the human race."

Anyone wishing to volunteer at Silverline can contact: volunteering@thesilverline.org.uk.

The Silver Line free helpline telephone number is 0800 4 70 80 90.