The NHS has issued a call for volunteers to support the 1.5 million extremely vulnerable people who have been asked to stay at home to shield themselves from coronavirus for twelve weeks.
It’s essential that we all pull together as part of the national effort to protect the most vulnerable, reduce pressures on our NHS and care system so we can save lives. That is why we are calling on people to sign up to become an NHS Volunteer Responder and join an army of 250,000 volunteers helping the most vulnerable people in our communities. Doing so will mean you can make a real difference to some of the households who have been most affected by the outbreak – from delivering essential prescriptions to calling to check on the wellbeing of those self-isolating. Helping vulnerable people is one exception for which people can leave home. However, the most important thing everyone must do to stop the spread of the virus is to continue to follow the latest public health advice – which is to stay at home, protect the NHS and save lives.
Members of the public can sign up quickly and easily at goodsamapp.org/NHS to become NHS Volunteer Responders and can be called on to do simple but vital tasks such as:
- delivering medicines from pharmacies;
- driving patients to appointments;
- bringing them home from the ital;
- or making regular phone calls to check on people isolating at home.
NHS Volunteer Responders is not intended to replace local groups helping their vulnerable neighbours but is an additional service provided by the NHS.