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The Home Visit Service is provided by WRVS volunteers on behalf of the Switchover Help Scheme. This service offers support to eligible people in their homes to discuss their options under the Help Scheme, assist them to use their new equipment, or be there as a chaperone when the engineer calls.

Nicola Winson is a Local Service Manager at the WRVS and co-ordinates the service in the Meridian TV region. She has worked for WRVS for five years, starting off in the Meals on Wheels service, and first got involved in the Home Visit service during the run-up to switchover in the Central TV region.

Nicola says: “WRVS’s role involves recruiting and training volunteers and co-ordinating the visits, liaising with Digital Outreach and the Help Scheme contact centre.

“We train the volunteers jointly with Digital Outreach  – we cover what WRVS expects of them, health and safety issues and so on, and Digital Outreach gives them an insight into digital switchover. They don’t need to know all the technical information that the engineers do, but they need to know why it’s happening and what people need to do. An important aspect of the service is acting as a good neighbour and making people feel comfortable. I’ve trained about 200 people so far who are keen to volunteer. We’ve met some wonderful people - they’re giving so much to help others and I hope when I get that age, someone will come out and see me!”

People may need a home visit for a variety of reasons: “It could be that they don’t have family, or don’t hear very well – for example we had one lady who had tried to call the Help Scheme, but couldn’t hear what the person on the other end of the phone was saying,” says Nicola. “Some people have memory problems. A lot of older people just don’t like dealing with people over the phone. Our volunteers are comfortable working with people with these sorts of problems and are used to hearing “Who are you?” when they turn up at the door of someone they’ve arranged a visit with! But people soon remember the smiley face coming to the door.”

A home visit service is arranged when someone who is eligible for the Help Scheme gets in touch with the contact centre and requests one. The contact centre then contacts Nicola, who arranges a trained and trusted volunteer to provide the support.

Nicola says that people are happy when they know it’s a WRVS volunteer who will come and see them. “We have a big profile – older people and vulnerable people trust WRVS – they know who we are. It’s not just about providing the service, but about being a good neighbour and giving ongoing support.

“Sometimes, people have asked us direct for the help because they are too worried to ring the call centre, or a friend has told them about it. One lady rang and asked for a home visit, and was impressed with the lovely volunteer and told her neighbour, who thought “I want that!” and rang us direct.  When this happens, I ring the Help Scheme on their behalf and ask them to ring the person and confirm this with them.

The volunteers have built people’s confidence about switchover and the Help Scheme. “About 90% of our visits so far have been for a volunteer to talk the person through the Help Scheme letter and discuss their options,” says Nicola. “When they get that form through the door, some people think “oh help!” and are daunted by it, and feel they can’t do it. But when they get that face to face support and someone is talking them through it, it builds their confidence and they feel able to go ahead with the installation. Most people we have visited have felt able to deal with the Help Scheme direct after it has been explained to them.”

Being involved in the home visit service benefits WRVS and its volunteers as well as the people they support. Nicola says: “Working on this project is raising the profile of WRVS, which is an advantage to us and our service users. We have also recruited more volunteers and have been able to keep existing volunteers involved who are sadly without a role at this current time. People volunteer for different reasons but they all get satisfaction from the volunteering – the company, the feeling of being useful and helping others, all lifts morale and they see the difference they are making to people’s lives.

“We’ve got some wonderful volunteers. We have a young man – John - in the Meridian Region who has Downs syndrome and really wanted to help out. I rang his mum and had a chat and they both came along to the training session. At the end of it, his mum actually became a WRVS volunteer! They said that they would work in a pair. John had such a big smile on his face, like he had just won the Lottery, and was so happy that he could help somebody else.”

It also brings wider benefits to the eligible people that they support. “Through this service, we’re reaching people who we’ve never reached before - finding people who are really isolated but could do with some services. Recently, I visited a lady who told me she had an appointment at a hospital and was telling me how much it cost to get there. She asked if WRVS run a bus service and although we don’t, I was able to tell her there is an NHS bus where you just pay £5 and can be driven to any hospital appointment within that city.”

Volunteer profile – Norma and Ian Kennedy

Norma and Ian are a husband and wife in their 70s who volunteer for the Home Library Service, which brings books to people who are housebound. Norma says, “I do this with my husband Ian because I don’t drive.” They got involved with the Home Visit service when notes were sent round asking for volunteers to help. Norma said, “Having done the home visits through the library, we’ve got used to going to people’s houses and how to approach them. We’ve built up quite a relationship with the people we’ve supported.”

So far, Norma and Ian have supported three people under the Home Visit service, providing each of them with options advice. Norma said: “All of them had a basic idea, but wanted to be sure before they committed themselves. We’re in our 70s ourselves so we don’t talk about ‘older people’ – it’s more about the language, and talking it through. What seems to a technical person to be layman’s terms is still more than us ‘mere mortals’ understand!”

“One lady we went to see had a second TV and didn’t know what she was going to do with that. She was a very competent woman, but didn’t want to make the phone call, so we did that for her. The engineer came out and put a new aerial in, installed a digibox on her TV, and when we rang back she said that she was very happy and everything had gone fine.

“Another gentleman we visited was very agitated about the switchover. He had had a stroke, and had also recently fallen for a scam on his computer, which meant he had had to replace all his bank cards. The TV being switched over was the last straw. The gentleman was entitled to free help from the Help Scheme and my husband helped him and his family talk it through. His wife, grandson and daughter were there, so they understood how to help him sort it out. I rang back to check all was OK, and he had got it sorted.”

What Norma enjoys most about working on the home visit service is the difference she can make to somebody. “It’s the satisfaction you feel when people have come to a decision or if things are clearer for them when we leave than when we arrive,” she said.

Please can we take this opportunity to express our sincere thanks to all the volunteers who have been involved with this project.