Articles from February 2025

Maggie Ratcliffe carries around a small piece of paper in her handbag with instructions in case she has a stroke. With no family and few friends, she is worried that if she ends up in hospital, no one will be around to ensure her wishes are carried out.

Maggie, 84, has lived alone since the breakdown of her marriage when she was 27. An only child, her mother died when she was six and her father when she was 18. She has no children and no family.

‘I see things on television about people who haven’t spoken to anyone for a week and I know what that’s like,’ Maggie, from Sandhurst, tells Metro.

‘Days will go by when I haven’t spoken to anyone – apart from carers. It’s difficult. I don’t have anybody I can just go out and have a coffee with. Everybody is so involved with family and friends and I don’t get included. If I’m not well, no one checks in on me.’

Maggie, who used to work in cabin crew, has survived cancer, two failed knee operations and has spine degeneration so is unable to walk more than a few yards. She manages to do a little gardening while sitting on a chair, and she used to volunteer, but is no longer able due to her poor mobility.

‘If it’s a lovely day I often think how I would like to have someone to go to a garden centre with or something. But I can’t do that. I can’t even go for a day out on a coach with the garden club, as people are in pairs or couples. You end up sitting on your own. It’s hard,’ she says.

The loneliness epidemic

While it may feel like society is more connected than ever with phones, the internet and social media – thousands like Maggie have wound up feeling more alone than ever.

Such is the issue that the World Health Organisation branded loneliness a ‘global health concern’ in 2024. In the media, there have been tragic headlines about people whose deaths go unnoticed for months, even years, as a result of an increasingly disconnected society.

This was the case for Michael Roy Palmer, who cut off contact with his family and spent much of his later life as a recluse. Overgrown hedges encased his home in Cornwall and many of his neighbours had no idea what he looked like. In September 2023, a man delivering leaflets glanced at a window and spotted Michael’s body lying on his living room floor. It later emerged he had been dead for months and no-one had noticed.

In another tragic case, 41-year-old Laura Winham’s ‘mummified and almost skeletal’ remains were found at her flat in Woking, Surrey three years after she died. Her body was found on May 24 2021 and a calendar found in the property had dates crossed off until 1 November 2017. She had cut contact with her loved ones after years of mental health struggles.

Pensioners like Maggie are especially becoming increasingly isolated. New research from Age UK has found that 1.5 million older people now rarely leave their home.

Staff on the charity’s Silverline Helpline, a free telephone service, routinely hear heartbreaking tales, explains Ruth Lowe, head of loneliness services at Age UK.

‘There have been times we can’t carry out the whole call because the older person’s voice begins to hurt due to the fact they haven’t spoken in so long,’ Ruth tells Metro over Zoom. ‘We know that 270,000 older people go a week without speaking to a family member or a friend. Not having a connection with anyone meaningful is something quite hard for a lot of us to imagine.

‘We find that older people can often become trapped in a sort of chronic cycle where they feel lonely and their health becomes worse, so they become more isolated. Older people who are feeling this way might find it harder to take care of themselves and their home; they might even start to misuse drugs or alcohol.

‘Loneliness can bring up such a lot of negative feelings and make people feel like there is no point to their existence, that nobody is interested in them or values them.’

‘I had cancer and my neighbours never came to see me’

Although Maggie goes for a ‘wonderful’ coffee and a chat at a church friendship group every Tuesday, the problem for her is that it’s miles away from her home. ‘If I don’t turn up, nobody will send me a text,’ she says.

‘I wish people would think for a minute and look out for their elderly neighbours. I had cancer in 2011 and my neighbours never came in. When I was lying in bed with a knee replacement I didn’t see anyone. I got so depressed, it was awful.

‘I live in fear of having a stroke, and not being able to talk and nobody knows my wishes. I don’t want to go into a home, but I have written a few down in a list in my handbag, so if someone from the hospital looks in there, they don’t just put me anywhere. I have to think these things through because I have no-one else to do it for me.

‘I’ve already organised a woodland burial. I don’t want people coming to my funeral when they couldn’t come and see me in real life. If people want to come and have a drink and think of me – fine. But I don’t want them standing by my grave.

I’m not miserable, but I wish I had somebody who cared about me. I’m a tactile person, but I never get a hug,’ Maggie adds.

Modern life and an isolated society

In the lead up to the 2024 general election, over 100 sector organisations, including Age UK, came together to call for the incoming government to tackle loneliness and build community.

The axing of public transport routes and closure of public toilets [many older people need to use the bathroom more regularly] are among the cutbacks which have left people more and more anxious about leaving their home. Meanwhile modern technology has also left a void where human interactions used to be. Bank branches have vanished from our high streets, train ticket offices have closed in their droves and more traditional check-outs have been replaced with self service machines.

‘The whole world is more set up now for us all to become more isolated,’ warns Ruth.

‘We’ve recently published a report on loneliness where we are calling for change from government, private, public health and social care sectors to take a joined up approach to loneliness. As individuals we can all also play our part in making our communities more friendly for older people. Look out for older friends, relatives and neighbours and consider making a phone call, sending a letter or suggesting a cup of tea.’

Ruth joined Age UK 13 years ago as a volunteer befriender. Since then, she has seen conversations about mental health and loneliness improve, but says there’s still a stigma which needs to be broken down.

‘I think a lot of people don’t want to think about it [loneliness] as it’s hard to imagine ourselves in that situation,’ she continues. ‘We want to change how we age and we want to make things better for everyone in later life. Loneliness is a perfectly natural human emotion, we’ve all experienced it at some time in our life, there’s no need to be embarrassed or ashamed about it. If we’re happy to talk about it, we can reduce the stigma.

‘When elderly people join our telephone friendship service, we ask about their hobbies and interests to match them with a volunteer. We’ve had older people in tears on these calls in the past as they just can’t believe that someone is interested in them and wants to hear about them. And sometimes, a short call can be enough to get them back on their feet.’

Maggie eventually found a lifeline in Glenda, a call companion volunteer from charity Reengage, who, for more than two years, has been calling once a week to chat.

’It’s wonderful. I love speaking to her. We discuss just about everything – her family, music, art. There’s nothing we don’t talk about,’ she explains. ’The calls with her are very important to me. I always look forward to them.’

Jenny Willott, CEO of Re-engage tells Metro that the charity supports thousands of older people every year. ‘We know just how devastating loneliness can be for them. Some may go weeks without talking to or seeing anyone which leaves many feeling they have been abandoned by a society that has no interest in them.

Our call befriending services, free tea parties and activity groups all provide a crucial lifeline to the outside world for these older people and it’s astonishing to see just how much even a short period of social contact improves their mental and physical wellbeing.’

Do you have a story you’d like to share? Get in touch by emailing Claie.Wilson@metro.co.uk 

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MPs have gathered in Westminster to throw their support behind Metro’s Formula for Change campaign with charity Feed, calling for infant formula milk to be more affordable and accessible.

At a parliamentary drop-in event held by Labour MP for Blackpool South Chris Webb, the MP showed his support for Metro’s campaign at an event he put on to encourage peers to push for legislative change to help families buy formula.

With costs soaring by 25% in the past two years, desperate parents have been reduced to watering down formula and even stealing tubs off shop shelves, to ensure their babies get fed.

Speaking to Metro, Webb said: ‘It’s expensive and there are so many barriers.

SIGN METRO’S FORMULA FOR CHANGE PETITION HERE

‘I’ve seen this in Blackpool – and myself becoming a new dad – parents asking money for formula, borrowing money for tins, as they can’t get through the month.

‘We want to make it that little bit more accessible by working with government, suppliers, supermarkets and food banks.’

As the room filled with MPs eager to pledge their support and find out more about the issues surrounding the accessibility of formula, some spoke about how necessary the campaign was, while others admitted they were shocked by the lack of clear guidance on offer for retailers and foodbanks.

Some were also keen to share their own experiences, such as Josh Newbury, the Labour MP for Cannock Chase, Staffordshire.

He recently fostered Ryland, a five-month-old boy, and told Metro: ‘I put three boxes of infant formula into my trolley on Saturday and it was nearly £40.

‘That made me really think: “How could somebody on a lower income sustain this?” As your baby gets older, they’re drinking more and more.

‘Even compared to when my daughter was a baby five years ago, a lot of the cheaper supermarket own-brands have disappeared off the shelves. The milk we use has gone up £4 a box.

‘I just want to make sure that something as basic as this is affordable for parents, there’s choice and prices aren’t going up, and up, and up.’

Meanwhile, Lizzi Collinge, a Labour MP for Morecambe and Lunesdale, attended the drop-in as she feels current infant feeding policies are ‘not helpful for mums or babies’.

‘Barriers to accessible formula put vulnerable babies in danger,’ she said.

‘As someone who is fully formula-fed and combined fed two children,’ she said, meaning she breastfed and used infant milk, ‘it’s clear how expensive formula is.

‘Formula feeding is often not a choice. It’s something that absolutely necessary for a baby to thrive and the cost of formula and the restrictions on its sale are really unhelpful.’

Webb added that as well as supporting mothers who breastfeed we needed to take away the stigma surrounding formula too. ‘My son wouldn’t take to breastfeed so we had to take to formula,’ he said. ‘That’s becoming more and more common.’

Another attendee was Adam Thilthorpe, co-founder of the AI health start-up Change-Box.net. He told Metro how his team are working to make formula milk, nappies and other essentials more easily available.

His team’s focus is ensuring ‘food deserts’ – such as rural areas that don’t even have a supermarket – are fully stocked. Their aim is to encourage companies like multi banks to donate essentials to small convenience stores that are lifelines in such communities to help remove any stigma.

‘We want to make sure that no one in the queue knows you just benefitted from donations,’ he said.

Clare Murphy, the chief executive officer of Feed, added that formula prices are rising ‘faster’ than other essentials during the cost of living crisis.

So much so that the NHS’s Healthy Start Scheme, a free voucher for people on low-wage or social welfare to pay for baby essentials, no longer covers the cost of formula milk.

‘There are some quite simple things that can slightly alleviate the pressure, one of which is changing or reinterpreting the regulations to allow the use of loyalty points and vouchers that many families collect and spend on their food shops which can make a difference,’ Murphy said.

She added that the current guidelines that decide how baby formula in Britain can be made, promoted and sold are ‘confusing’.

Murphy stressed that the regulations treat baby formula like tobacco and lottery tickets, so can’t be purchased using supermarket loyalty points.

‘We seem to have ended up in a situation where a normal product that most families will need in the first months of the baby’s life has been made unaffordable and inaccessible,’ she said.

Since Formula for Change was launched by Metro with Feed in 2023, our petition has netted over 106,000 signatures, while Katherine Ryan, LadBaby and Health Secretary Wes Streeting are among the figures championing it.

An change is being made. Just last month the Department of Health and Social Care officially confirmed via Chris Webb that food and baby banks can supply cash-strapped families with formula tubs.

Webb told Metro that Health Minister Andrew Gwynne will hold a roundtable next month to discuss changing the regulations.

‘Organisations, charities and baby formula suppliers will look at how we can review the current regulations and make it easier for families to get access,’ he said.

‘This is at the minister’s forefront of what he’s looking at to help make healthier babies.’

In the weeks ahead, Webb said he intends to head to Number 10 with Metro and Feed to hand in the Formula For Change petition calling for clearer guidelines and better support. ‘It’s to keep that conversation going,’ he explained.

James Frith, Labour MP for Bury North, a region about eight miles north of Manchester, said he hopes for the same.

‘I’m a dad of four. I know how important those first thousand days are,’ he said . ‘Good nutrition is absolutely vital to those early years of development and their chances of success later in life.’

‘I can’t imagine any MP that would disagree with the argument at the heart of this,’ added Frith.

Get in touch with our news team by emailing us at webnews@metro.co.uk.

For more stories like this, check our news page.

Octopus Energy customers who haven’t upgraded to a smart meter have been warned their power could be cut off.

The firm is the largest supplier of energy in the United Kingdom, serving more than 7,300,000 customers as of 2025.

For years, there’s been a push for smart meters to help customers save money and better track their usage.

Those who still have radio teleswitch meters (RTS) have now been warned that if they don’t switch the obsolete meters, their power will be cut off on June 30.

Upwards of 600,000 customers could be affected if they don’t get a new smart meter.

Octopus said they plan to fast-track upgrades for customers who need them in a bid to make sure ‘no one’ is left without heating.

CEO John Szymik said: ‘Octopus has boosted its service capability to offer fast-tracked assistance and ensure that no one is left without heating.

‘We urge all affected customers, of any supplier, to book their meter exchange now to ensure a smooth transition.’

Those who want to switch their meter before the cut off can do so on their Octopus Account.

The Energy Saving Trust previously said every home and office in England, Scotland and Wales would be offered a smart meter by mid-2025.

Smart meters replace the meters monitoring your gas and electricity usage, and via a display panel show you exactly how much energy you’re using.

These meters are connected to your exact tariff for both gas and electricity, too, so you’ll also see how much everything costs as you go.

Get in touch with our news team by emailing us at webnews@metro.co.uk.

For more stories like this, check our news page.

On July 2 2024, I was told by an NHS oncologist that I had incurable breast cancer.

As I received this life-changing news, I thought about how my family would react, and the treatment I was about to undergo. I didn’t feel scared of the illness – more numbed by the thought of the inevitable upheaval.

But there was one thing I was afraid of. How was I going to manage financially?

Depleted funds are a consequence of this disease and I don’t think that is talked about enough. How does a cancer patient manage the cost?

I first noticed the lump in my breast back in April, the result of a check while I was getting dressed. There was no panic, just a practical decision made to contact my GP.

Following an initial consultation there were a significant number of appointments with breast surgeons and oncologists over 10 weeks, as well as scans – many of which meant 40-mile drives.

The cost of those trips, around £150, began to hit me hard.

I’m a baker and, at the time, I had two branches of my business. One was teaching other bakers how to run a business, mainly online, but the other was as a wedding cake maker.

My income was around £2,000 a month. But after my diagnosis, hospital visits took at least one day out of each working week, meaning I had to postpone and cancel online training and squeeze cake preparation into fewer days.

No sick pay and time away from the business for hospital visits meant more lost income – not to mention, the days when I’d be unwell and unable to work.

I have a small teaching pension that covers the cost of my mortgage and council tax, but that means I’m not eligible for benefits.

This also means I can’t claim the cost of hospital travel, or apply for a PIP.

But there was another issue. The thing with wedding cakes is that they are often booked at least a year in advance – sometimes two years or more.

It soon became apparent, due to the prognosis of a limited life expectancy, that taking bookings years in advance wasn’t going to be viable.

That was devastating.

Even though the oncologist had given me hope that I would live for a number of years, there was no guarantee that my health wouldn’t start failing sooner, meaning that any wedding bookings would need to be cancelled and refunded – an added stress that I wasn’t prepared to accommodate.

So, over the summer months of 2024, while I was undergoing all the initial post-diagnosis checks and starting treatment, I had to make plans to close my business.

That meant an almost immediate loss of income, losing up to £1,000 a month.

Once my initial round of tests, scans and results appointments finished, and I had my final diagnosis and the routines kicked in, things got slightly better.

My hospital trust gives free parking to cancer patients, for example. This was a significant saving as, during July, August and September, I had to make at least six visits a month to the hospital and that saved me £100.

Free prescriptions also saved about £20 a time.

But despite these helpful ways to cut costs, I still couldn’t just do without what I’d been earning before – so I decided to change my business structure.

I needed to create income streams that didn’t rely on my being 100% well on any given day; and I realised that, while a wedding day can’t be delayed, a training session can be.

Teaching bakers how to run a business now needed to become my main source of income.

I had to create a plan… quickly.

I’m not afraid to ask for help, so I reached out to my business friends and they helped me with strategy.

And it worked. My previous training income of around £600 went up to £1,500 in October and £2,000 in November, with it rising still more over the next few months.

In the time that has passed since my diagnosis, I’ve been productively getting on with my life. During that time I’ve seen the loss of one business, but the growth of another, which I love just as much.

My plans are now to pay off my mortgage in the next two years.

But I can’t help but wonder how many lives affected by cancer would be made that bit more manageable if financial support was offered as a matter of routine.

I’m now spending a great deal of my time setting up a Community Interest Company (CIC), which will benefit young adults whose parents are diagnosed with a life limiting illness, and spreading awareness about cancer issues.

And my advice is simple to anyone who finds themselves affected by cancer and subsequent financial struggles: Visit the Macmillan website for financial advice.

They have a simple online form that can point you in the direction of help for your situation, as well as a comprehensive list of resources and links that could help; they even offer advice on the cost of looking after your pets.

In the face of life-changing challenges, I’ve learned that, while cancer takes so much, it doesn’t have to take everything.

By seeking support, adapting to new realities, and advocating for better awareness, I’ve found strength, resilience, and a renewed purpose – and I’m determined to help others do the same.

And, although I initially felt apprehensive about the potential disruption to my income, I’ve discovered that with careful planning and the right support, my financial future is secure – whatever happens with this disease.

Do you have a story you’d like to share? Get in touch by emailing jess.austin@metro.co.uk. 

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