For thousands of isolated older people whose families are far away and whose council help has been cut, innovative community schemes are tackling the 'generation strain' of loneliness

Richard, 79, a retired railway engineer in the Midlands, is cheerful and courteous on Good Friday as he explains that since the council axed the Dial-a-Ride scheme his social life, including a lunch club, shopping and outings, has been reduced to a single visit each week to church. A neurological condition means that Richard (not his real name) needs a wheelchair. A member of the congregation comes to push him the short distance to church. "I'm extremely lucky in that respect," he says. Richard is now confined to his room in his sheltered accommodation, six days out of seven. A reduction in staff from six to two also means that his fellow residents are unknown to each other, as there is no extra help to arrange social events.

Richard explains, without rancour, that he paid £900 for a battery pack for his wheelchair, but his carers say it's not their job to plug it into the mains to charge. "Some are very caring," he adds. But others are not. He was recently left in a wet bed for more than five hours. "What can you do?"

Richard is divorced, his son lives in South America and his daughter is in Singapore. "I would say I am entombed, imprisoned and isolated," Richard says. "But how can I expect a community of strangers, with their own lives, to come to my rescue?"

The growing calamity that is social care is well known, but Richard's plight reveals a new crisis in the making. In Britain, relatives and friends provide £55bn a year of unpaid informal care. However, according to The Generation Strain – a report to be published on Thursday by the IPPR thinktank – by 2017, for the first time, the number of older people in need of care is expected to outstrip the number of family members able and willing to give help. By 2032, 1.1 million older people in England will need care from their families, an increase of 60%, but the number of people able to care will only increase by 20%. Richard's plight will become more of the rule than the exception, unless the current system receives a major overhaul. "Thousands of people could be left to cope on their own when they need care in the future, with overstretched services unable to make up the shortfall," says Clare McNeill, author of the report.

Eight out of 10 local authorities now only fund "critical" need, while social care has faced cuts of 20%, with more to come. According to the Nuffield Trust, the NHS will require another £30bn a year by 2020 for the social care bill. The Generation Strain report supports greater integration of health and social care, but also calls for more innovation to find alternative ways to fill the family care gap.

In Leeds, one of 14 local authorities pioneering better health and social care integration, two pilots which were begun last summer but officially launched this month build on 22 years of community work. If successful and rolled out across the country, the scheme could save the NHS up to £1bn a year in social care spending and put an end to the involuntary solitary confinement of thousands of older people like Richard.

"Our aim is tackling loneliness, the blight of the 21st century," says Adam Ogilvie, the Leeds Labour councillor who is leading the change to adult social care. Mick Ward, head of adult social care – debonair in silver shoes and blue bow tie – fizzes as he describes the core philosophy of the changes. Older people are seen not as a set of expensive problems but as enterprising people with gifts and assets that can be utilised to improve their communities. Their basic practical requirements – washing, dressing, eating – are assessed by social services, as has always been the case, but crucially under the new scheme a community planner also visits and works with the person to give back to him or her an active life. The individual's personal budget, used to buy care, is pooled, managed by the centre, stretching resources further.

Caroline, a former social worker, and Sarah, an occupational therapist, job-share as community planners. "Most people have a very simple need," Caroline says. "They say, 'I don't want to be on my own any more'."

"I've always wanted to tackle isolation," adds Mick Ward. "But for years I've been swimming against the tide. Now we're riding a wave."

Garforth Neighbourhood Elders Team (NET) is housed in a converted day centre and services 13 former pit villages. It is one of 37 centres locally organised and run by and for people aged 60 and over in Leeds. Garforth, established in 1995, now has more than 2,000 clients and 157 volunteers who give practical advice and support, and organise more than 50 events a week (armchair yoga, knitting and nattering). Eric Clayton, a retired factory worker and skilled carpenter, is 84. He looked after his wife for 16 years until she died four years ago. "We'd been married for 56 years," he says. "When she died it was as if someone had taken out my brain." He stayed in the house alone for months. "Then, one morning, I looked in the mirror and told myself: 'She'd play hell if she saw you like this'. So I shaved, put on a coat and went out. It was raining and cold. I came back soaking wet, but I felt alive again."

Soon after, Eric joined the centre and met volunteer Brian Slack, 69, an ex-RAF man. Brian and Eric now have an outing every Wednesday. They belong to a men's group which has a regular pub lunch. Eric also volunteers to work on the centre's allotment, sings in the choir, and – with his friend, Jean Beasley, 83 – he is preparing for an afternoon event for people with dementia. They show me the sculptures that have been made. "Everybody can do something," Jean says. At the centre, the immobile are helped, the housebound visited. "Every time I walk in, I know I am going to have a good day today," Jean says. A time bank encourages local firms to give their time, and there are inter-generational links with local schools, including pupils with special needs teaching IT skills to older clients.

A "community connector", a trusted local person, is paid to spot the potentially lonely and to recruit older people with skills they want to share. One community connector put a "whittler", a carver, in touch with a formerly isolated man. They now regularly chat and carve walking sticks. "It's all about reciprocity," says Monica Walker, head of the centre.

The aim is to reduce the number of emergency hospital admissions and the use of residential care, day centres and intensive home support, keeping older people involved and communities alive. Mick Ward, who also commissions social care, tells the story of a woman in her 60s who was admitted to A&E seven times in two months, extremely agitated and ostensibly mentally ill. A member of the network visited her and discovered that she had been drinking 12 cans of Red Bull a day. The visit cost a fraction of the hundreds of pounds in A&E admissions. "I know which I prefer," he says.

The scheme is financed not by government but by Big Society Capital, an independent financial institution investing in social ventures. The hope is a saving in the council's social care budget of between 5% to 10%. The savings will repay the interest on the Big Society Capital loan; a share will go to the council and a share reinvested in the neighbourhood networks.

"My daughters complain all the time," Eric says, cheerfully. "They say I'm never at home."