C-19 Cumbria Community Resilience Group

Update on Key Issues and Actions – 3 April 2020

Once again, I have attempted to group related issues and actions together and update below.

If you feel there are any actions from the last meeting that haven’t been adequately covered in this update, please either contact me advance (CarolynO@cumbriacvs.org.uk / 07776 594252) or raise them during Monday’s meeting.

Emergency Support Helpline and Hubs

Cumbria County Council Emergency Support Service

The Cumbria County Council Coronavirus helpline is now live: https://cumbria.gov.uk/coronavirus/helpline.asp

The helpline aims to support people who have been advised to remain at home because they are at high risk of developing serious complications if they catch Coronavirus, and who do not have access to support from friends, family, neighbours or local community groups. It is set up to help with shopping and prescriptions.

Individuals can contact the helpline in the following ways:

Telephone: 0800 783 1966

Online form: https://cumbria-risk.oncreate.app/w/webpage/1859EBBFF1

Email: COVID19support@cumbria.gov.uk

Community groups can also use these methods to refer to the helpline/hub system.

During the first week, the call centre has taken around 200 calls a day – these have been quite varied requests, and it is mainly being used by appropriately, by people who can’t get support elsewhere, and for help with food and medicines.

You can help us to publicise the helpline by sharing the embedded flier, or accessing the full range of publicity materials here: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1MZbrSE2tosOWgp8P7tZr_TXODWyYOyrA

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National “Shielding” Support

There is a separate support system running nationally for those people identified as being at particularly high risk of serious complications – the “shielding” group.

The shielding group includes people who’ve had an organ transplant, those with some types of cancers and people with cystic fibrosis; there are about 10,000 people in Cumbria who fall within the “shielding” category.

You can read the full government information on the people who have been advise to “shield” here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/guidance-on-shielding-and-protecting-extremely-vulnerable-persons-from-covid-19/guidance-on-shielding-and-protecting-extremely-vulnerable-persons-from-covid-19

These people have received a letter from the NHS nationally or from their own GP, advising them to remain at home, and to register (via a national phoneline or website) if they require support to do so. Over 2,000 people in Cumbria have registered, and if they require a food delivery, this is arranged directly by national government. Around 400 of these national food parcels have been delivered so far in Cumbria.

People who believe they fall into the “shielding” category but who have not received a letter can register by calling 0800 028 8327 or online: https://www.gov.uk/coronavirus-extremely-vulnerable

Cumbria County Council has a small supply of emergency food for the shielding group, to be used if the national deliveries fail for any reason. Anyone in this position should contact the Cumbria helpline using the details above.

A little more detail on the two helpline systems is available in Angela’s summary circulated after last week’s Cumbria Community Resilience Group, embedded below.

Cumbria’s overall approach to coordinating the community response

Community groups and other types of local support are still an absolutely essential part of Cumbria’s overall response to Coronavirus. We’re yet to finalise the diagram below, but it might help you to understand the overall approach that we’re trying to take to make sure that people get the help they need.

In very simple terms, we’re hoping that most people can get help and support in the “lower” layers – getting support from friends, family and neighbours, or from community groups. The helpline and hub system is there as a safety net for those people who haven’t managed to get help more informally, and much of the time, its role will simply be to connect people to local support.

This should leave a relatively small number of people needing direct services from formal voluntary sector organisations or statutory sector organisations. This is important, because many of those formal organisations are facing challenges themselves, as their staff are advised to remain at home because of health conditions, or because they are suffering from symptoms that might be

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Coronavirus and have been advised to self-isolate. In addition, the staff and volunteers from many formal organisations are being asked to take on new roles, for example to support the Recovery Centres (providing additional hospital bed capacity) that have been established in Cumbria.

This approach seems to be working well, although it’s a rather new way of working for many of us, and there are bound to be some hiccups along the way. Once again, thank you all for the effort you are putting in, and your tolerance as we work things through.

If you or any groups you’re working with want new volunteers, please complete the embedded form and return it to Cumbria CVS – we have nearly 1000 volunteers registered on the Support Cumbria system and Cumbria CVS will do their best to match them to organisations who need them.

If you know of individuals who want to volunteer, please encourage them to consider helping their neighbours and joining local community groups, and also direct them to the Support Cumbria website to register: https://supportcumbria.org.uk/

You could also encourage them to look at the “10 Ways to help your Community” factsheet.

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“Lockdown” Guidance

There has inevitably been some initial confusion over what can and can’t be done during “lockdown”, although this is beginning to become clearer.

Volunteering and Neighbourliness during Lockdown

As far as we are aware, there have been very few problems with volunteers being challenged about their right to be outside their home during “lockdown”, and only within the first few days as everyone got to grips with the new national guidance.

We’ve produced an advice sheet with the Police to help community groups understand the situation; please get in touch if you’re still encountering any problems. This has already been circulated by email, but is also embedded below.

We are aware that some groups may have been advised not to put their leaflets through doors; if this is the case, and you feel it is still important to be able to do so, please get in touch and we will work through these on an individual basis.

Businesses operating during “lockdown”

Some communities have expressed concern that businesses are remaining open when they are not “essential”. Whilst some types of business, such as bars and restaurants, have been required to close, many other businesses can remain open if they are able to ensure suitable social distancing measures are in place. Further information is available here:

https://www.businesssupport.gov.uk/business-closures-and-stay-at-home-faqs/?utm_content=buffer916d7&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer

“Lockdown” timescale communication

Community groups were concerned that they were beginning to hear people express the view that “we’ve been at home for a week and it’s not working, so why bother?”. This has been raised in the Strategic Coordination Group and you should start to see explanations of the length of time it is likely to take to see the impacts of local down appearing in the local media.

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Food and shopping

A number of issues have been raised around access to food and other essentials.

Foodbanks

Some foodbanks have found it difficult to access supplies of non-perishable goods (even where they had funds available to purchase these) due to shortages in the supermarkets. A small task group was established by Cumbria County Council to look at this.

We believe that immediate problems have been fixed by a combination of connecting foodbanks to wholesale suppliers, and by supermarkets now having a better supply of goods. Please let use know if this isn’t the case, or if other problems arise over the coming weeks.

Payment for shopping

Many local shops were quick to establish options for payment over the phone, making it relatively easy for neighbours and volunteers to shop for those advised not to leave their home.

However, supermarkets initially relied on their online systems, which became overloaded, and many people were unable to book a delivery slot. This left few options for volunteers to shop without handling cash – a situation best avoided, and an increasing problem as people run out of cash.

A number of new options are now available:

Booths have established dedicated checkouts where payment will be taken over the phone, along with a home delivery service:

https://www.booths.co.uk/coronavirus-covid-19-statement/

We understand that a number of other supermarkets, including Co-op, are also working on ways to solve this problem, and will update you as information becomes available.

NHS and health services

There have been a number of developments around NHS and related services

Prescriptions

There has been some confusion around who can collect and deliver prescriptions on behalf of other. This is largely a decision for individual pharmacies, and we are aware that a number of different local solutions have been developed. If any areas are still having problems please let us know.

The Royal Pharmaceutical Society guidance on pharmacy volunteers (which includes a section on deliveries) is here:

https://www.rpharms.com/resources/pharmacy-guides/coronavirus-covid-19/coronavirus-returning-or-volunteering/volunteer-guidance

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Transport to outpatient appointments

Some patients who normally travel to hospital outpatient appointments using the Cumbria County Council Voluntary Car Scheme have found that this hasn’t been possible over the last week or so. This is because many of the volunteer drivers have themselves been advised to remain at home because of their age or health conditions. This is only a small number of patients, as many outpatient appointments have now been cancelled.

Cumbria County Council’s Transport Operational Team (CTOT) will take on this work. CTOT staff usually provide transport for children and older adults when the schools and day centres are operating so are ideally placed to deliver this service. Patients will be transported in CTOT’s fleet of minibuses which will enable social distancing measures to be maintained.

Information on how to request this service has been circulated to the NHS, but if any community groups still experience problems or need more information, please let me know.

Recovery Centres and Hospital Discharge

Many of you will be aware that the military have been in Cumbria over last few days, establishing “Recovery Centres” in 5 locations to increase the bed capacity available as our acute hospitals begin to see more Coronavirus patients.

These are located at Whitehaven Leisure Centre, Carlisle Sands Centre, Penrith Leisure Centre, Kendal Leisure Centre and Furness Academy.

Recruitment is underway in North Cumbria, initially through existing third sector organisations, for volunteers to fill a number of specialist roles to support these centres (and other hospital discharge pathways).

Information sources

Cumbria County Council

Cumbria County Council continue to expand the range of Coronavirus resources on their website; this is now best accessed via the new landing page: https://www.cumbria.gov.uk/coronavirus/landingpage.asp

This is being updated with links to translated and EasyRead materials as we are made aware of them.

District Councils

The District Council websites contain information on the services that they provide – including waste services, business support grants and council tax relief.

Allerdale Borough Council: https://www.allerdale.gov.uk/en/coronavirus/

Barrow Borough Council: https://barrowbc.gov.uk/#

Carlisle City Council: https://www.carlisle.gov.uk/

Copeland Borough Council: https://www.copeland.gov.uk/coronavirus-pandemic-information-copeland

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Eden District Council: https://www.eden.gov.uk/coronavirus-covid-19/

South Lakeland District Council: https://www.southlakeland.gov.uk/your-environment/coronavirus-covid-19-support-and-advice/

The Cumbria CVS website has a third sector Coronavirus page: www.cumbriacvs.org.uk/coronavirus

And a Cumbria CVS page focussed on volunteering: www.cumbriacvs.org.uk/coronavirus/covid-19-volunteering

Funding

Cumbria Community Foundation has established a fund to support charitable groups to support vulnerable people affected by Coronavirus (Covid-19). You can read about some of the first projects that have been funded here: https://www.cumbriafoundation.org/2020/04/02/community-foundation-awards-first-grants-from-covid-19-response-fund/

Funding is available to:

support existing voluntary and community groups to adapt and expand their activities to support people affected by the Coronavirus pandemic

support new groups established to respond to Coronavirus

Full details are available on the Cumbria Community Foundation website:

https://www.cumbriafoundation.org/2020/03/17/community-foundation-launches-cumbria-covid-19-response-fund/

We would advise groups to get in touch with Cumbria Community Foundation to discuss their ideas before submitting a formal application.

We realise that many groups will struggle to find the time to write a grant application at this very busy time; support may be available from Cumbria CVS staff. Please contact them for help with funding applications via cvsfunding@cumbriacvs.org.uk or 01768 800350.

Finally, a reminder that you don’t need to wait until the weekly meetings to raise any problems you’re experiencing.

Please feel free to raise issues in the Local Resilience Group meetings, with the Area Teams, or to contact me directly: CarolynO@cumbriacvs.org.uk / 07776 594252

And please feel free to circulate this update to others, particularly voluntary organisations and community groups involved in the response to Coronavirus.

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