Well done to the Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt for speaking out on an issue on which the Telegraph & Argus has been campaigning for a long time – the treatment of the elderly members of our society.

Through our With Respect campaign, we have been for some years highlighting issues surrounding the care and treatment of elderly people in the health services, the care industry and in everyday life, calling for people of advancing years to be treated with the dignity they deserve.

Now Mr Hunt has said that it is a “national shame” that more than 800,000 older people are what he calls “chronically lonely”, completely isolated without even visits from their own family members.

There are probably many of us who, deep down, admit we could do better when it comes to ensuring our own elderly relatives are visited as often as they should be.

We all have busy lives and tend to allow things to slide with regards to our nearest and dearest, but the old adage of charity beginning at home is perhaps never more appropriate in this instance.

Of course, isolation of older people is not completely the fault of their own family. Many older people might not have family at all, and may rely on outside agencies to combat their loneliness.

As Age UK commented on Mr Hunt’s statement, given at a conference in Harrogate, cuts to local authority budgets which result in the closure of support services for older people do not in any way help the situation.

We all – individuals, care services, councils and government – need to pull together to combat this issue.