EARLIER this month, residents in Blackbird Leys were appalled when the body of an elderly man who had been dead for seven months was discovered in his flat.

Thomas Yuill was known by his neighbours, he was known to the council, but when he disappeared everyone thought someone else must know where he was.

Paul Cann, chief executive of Age UK Oxfordshire, looks at solutions to loneliness, from Japanese "Lonely Death Squads" to Australian Neighbour Day.

THOMAS Yuill, 82, lived alone in a social housing flat in Blackbird Leys. His next of kin had died in 2012.

He had lived there for more than 40 years but not paid any rent to the Oxford City Council since October. Various visits by the council went unanswered. In April a court order was secured by the city council to enter his home. Earlier this month the council gained entry to the flat and discovered his body. It is thought he had been dead for about seven months.

Before Christmas the Oxford Mail and Times ran a stirring campaign, "Lonely this Christmas", highlighting the common heartache of loneliness amongst older people, of whom just under 30,000 live on their own in Oxfordshire, and a quarter of those in the city.

Readers responded generously because they are human beings who understand our need to have contact, to know the warmth of company and to feel the hope others bring to our lives.

Yet the unbearable fact of lonely deaths confront us, even in caring Oxfordshire.

Every day across the UK, eight "lonely funerals" take place where, in the absence of anyone connected with the dying person to act, the local council steps in to arrange and fund this final rite – or right – of passage.

The tragedy is not yet as great as in Japan, where one in four of the population is over 65, which sees 30,000 lonely deaths (kodokushi) take place each year and "Lonely Death Squads" to clear up such properties are a growing industry.

But surely the story of Mr Yuill here, on our doorstep, in one of the most supposedly civilised cities in the world, should shock Oxfordshire into alertness and action.

Last week the Campaign to End Loneliness released its "heat map" of the UK showing how different risk factors for isolation and loneliness look in combination across the country, so that agencies can focus services on the areas with greatest risks, such as people living alone with poor health, mobility and social networks.

Oxford City Council has launched an initiative to contact more than 700 residents living alone.

Age UK Oxfordshire is working with Thames Valley Police to approach residents on their Vera list (Vulnerable Elderly Risk Assessment) and connect them with things: a social group, lunch club, exercise class – whatever they want to help them re-connect with life around them.

But will this be enough to make a difference to the appalling phenomenon of people living and dying alone? I do not think so.

It is surely time for us to step up a gear in our communities. We need a high-profile, neighbourly call to action such as Australia’s Neighbour Day, where people are invited to make contact with their neighbour. One day every year where people are urged to get out and make contact with one another, in the hope that the one day might turn out to be every day. Without a collective will of this kind the individual initiatives will be solitary stabs at the universal problem of solitariness.

No-one should have no-one.