Older person’s abuse charity sees 65% increase in calls year-on-year

Older people are being targeted more than ever before in new statistics and data revealed by Hourglass as part of its Safer Ageing Week campaign.

Hourglass: its work is inundated

The charity, the only one of its kind in the UK, reports that calls to its helpline are up 65% year-on-year and this has led to over 75,000 calls, contacts and impacts involving older people, their families and professionals. This is an all-time record for the thirty-year-old charity.

As part of a new campaign, entitled Take Note, the charity is urging the general public and influencers to finally grasp the nettle about the abuse of older people and treat it in the same manner as other forms of abuse.

This comes off the back of recent staggering data that revealed over £53m has been reported as losses relating to economic abuse in the past three years – an average of £87k per case (5,127 cases). These figures, which come from Hourglass cases alone, are likely to be a significant underestimate.

Then, as the Canary reported, an Hourglass study entitled The Economics of Abuse revealed the necessary cost to provide services to safeguard and protect older people from abuse would be just over £307 million.

This is against a cost to the UK economy for the abuse of older people of around £16.6 billion annually. This is the first time that such a comprehensive study has been undertaken.

The report states:

Normally a £16 billion issue of violence and neglect would be at the forefront of policy and public attention, but the abuse of older people and the needs of older victim-survivors continues to be last in line and suffer from a lack of attention, understanding, and a lack of care. Hopefully, placing a cost on the consequences of abuse against older people, will help policy makers to understand the dynamics of abuse, as well as the necessity of providing financial support to specialist services which aid older victim-survivors.

The study also highlights that the £16.6 billion figure will hit £25 billion by 2050 with the population of over 60s in the UK likely to grow to 22.7 million. This would equate to an estimated 589,264 older victim-survivors – and a cost of £43k to the UK economy per case.

Safer Ageing Week must kickstart change

Hourglass, who uniquely support older victim-survivors of abuse and neglect, employ just thirty members of staff to deal with cases, calls and research.

However, the charity has seen call figures jump from around 10,000 in 2020/21 to the new high of 75,000 in 2023/24.

Commenting on the figures, Richard Robinson CEO of Hourglass, said:

There is no question we are facing an epidemic of abuse of older people in the UK but it remains firmly under the radar. We estimate that abuse of older people costs the UK economy £16 billion per year, excluding economic abuse, and this equates to a figure of £50k per victim-survivor per year.

Safer Ageing Week 2024 is a rare opportunity to shine a light on these issues and sound the alarm bell. We are sleepwalking into a scenario where we are expecting more than nine million extra older people in the UK by 2050, equivalent to another city with the population of London, but with little pre-planning around safer ageing, abuse services and specialist safeguarding. We are already at epidemic levels – without urgent work, we are looking at a tidal wave of issues.

Featured image via Hourglass