Lancaster Coronavirus Support Line: 'Our motivation is offering support'

Ahead of the game and primed to react, the Lancaster Coronavirus Support Line has been supporting the most vulnerable and elderly people in the region since March 15th, helping reduce the impact of the novel coronavirus Covid-19 as much as possible.
Lancaster Coronavirus Support Line in action: the group has established a shopping delivery service.Lancaster Coronavirus Support Line in action: the group has established a shopping delivery service.
Lancaster Coronavirus Support Line in action: the group has established a shopping delivery service.

With their altruistic remit stretching out as far and wide as Carnforth, Morecambe, and Heysham, the support line was established so as to reassure people that they don't have to go through the outbreak alone, offering practical help with things such as shopping and medication whilst also providing a friendly phone service for those in isolation, a crucial reference point of normality.

Staffed largely by volunteers from Hope Church, as soon as the service was mooted it received 'a huge influx of volunteers', including DBS-checked volunteers from other churches across the city and people from the general population keen to muck in and help. They now have a team of 150 volunteers making a world of difference.

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"It all started pretty early on when someone at the church suggested setting up a phone number for people to ring or text if they need help with anything," says Jamie Haxby, an Outreach Worker with Hope Church. "We were initially thinking about people in our congregation, but we quickly decided to expand it to the general community and good friend of mine, Tim Morris, quickly developed a system to match volunteer requests to volunteers.

A message of thanks to the volunteers for their work.A message of thanks to the volunteers for their work.
A message of thanks to the volunteers for their work.

"Once people are DBS-checked and on the system, people can make a request which appears on a portal for volunteers - they don't see the sensitive info like names, addresses, or phone numbers, they just see the job and the locality," adds Jamie. "Then when they've had their request to take on the job accepted, they get a text with the details so they can then make arrangements to do it.

"So that's how it all kicked off."

Having quickly adapted to the restrictions imposed by the nationwide lockdown in order to keep providing a community point of contact as best they can in such unique times, the volunteers have gone from working towards community cohesion through their work in conjunction with the church to quickly becoming a crucial point of contact for many.

"Jobs go up and volunteers are practically fighting over them!" explains Jamie, 31, with the service now working with Lancaster City Council and Lancaster District CVS. "It's amazing. We quickly realised we'd done something nobody else had been able to; everybody had tonnes of volunteers but no way to connect them to those who needed help in a GDPR-sensitive way.

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"It's been really good; the speed of response is the key point," Jamie continues. "The council said the NHS volunteer system didn't hold a candle to ours."

Covering anything and everything from collecting shopping, actually doing shopping for people, and collecting and delivering medications to their phone-buddy work, the support line can signpost people to other professional agencies where appropriate and has so far carried out over 600 requests for local residents.

"We do anything that involves non-physical contact and which can be done by someone who's DBS-checked, including just phoning people up for a chat," says Jamie. "Loads of volunteers are doing that; the peace of mind that can offer is invaluable. We often get urgent requests for medication and we can deliver within an hour, so what we've been hearing about the volunteers has been great.

"That's our motivation, offering that support," Jamie continues. "Everything that people would normally take for granted has been taken away and while the primary difficulty during this time is economic and health-related, for a lot of people it's dealing with the fact that basic parts of life have been taken away."

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