BriefTea
Every story in sixty words
Get the free app no ads · no paywallExplained in plain English
The befriending crisis
The story reveals a 'befriending crisis', where the demand for human volunteers far outstrips supply. Yvonne Stride's two-and-a-half year wait is a stark example of this. Organisations struggle to recruit enough people to offer regular companionship, pushing innovators like Grant Mackenzie to look for technological alternatives to bridge this growing gap in community support.
Stories that explain this
AI chatbots offering companionship to lonely older people on long waiting listsRelated explainers
AI in social care Funding social care Loneliness in the UK What was the Asian Financial Crisis? What is a border crisis? Why is care a 'crisis'? Cost of living crisis What is a 'cost of living crisis'?The full catalogue
Browse every card filed under B →We would like to count visits and see which links bring readers here. That means storing a random ID in your browser. No cookies, no ads, no profile. How it works.