Available support
To people who need support
- Check In and Chat: Requests can be made for volunteers to provide a telephone chat and some encouragement to reduce loneliness and improve their wellbeing (1 call per day/week based on frequency selected which will be from a different volunteer each time up to 18 weeks).
- Check In and Chat Plus: Requests can be made for volunteers to provide a vulnerable person with regular telephone calls and encouragement to reduce loneliness and improve their wellbeing and these should be from the same volunteer. (3 calls per week for 6 weeks from a volunteer).
- Community Response: Requests can be made for volunteers to support with the collection and delivery of essential shopping and or prescriptions where there is a current health need. This is on a one-off basis or for a period of 6 weeks, days and times to be agreed between the volunteer and the person supported.
- Connect - A pilot activity which supports people to take part in social activities, pastimes or hobbies in the home or in their community.
Please ensure you select the correct type of support as your referral is matched to a volunteer with specific vetting for that activity.
Please note that some activities are limited to certain local authority areas and will continue to increase in the coming months.
To organisations
- Vaccination Steward Volunteers: NHS organisations require volunteers who will support the safe movement of people around vaccination sites. They can monitor numbers and identify people who need additional support. The maximum shift length is 4 hours.
- Pick Up and Deliver: NHS organisations require volunteers to support sites and individual patients who have been newly discharged from hospital to home or are being cared for on a virtual ward. This could be delivering medicine or monitoring equipment to a person’s home, returning any undelivered items, or supporting the movement of equipment between sites. Community pharmacies are not able to utilise this support. Please take note of the different schedules of controlled drugs.
For further guidance please call 0808 196 3382
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Page last reviewed: 11 March 2024
