COVID-19 Response Project

When the Prime Minister ordered everyone to "Stay at Home" in March 2020 and the NHS ordered vulnerable people to shield, this created a number of issues for the residents of our Parish.

Access to grocery shopping an prescription collections were key concerns. The village pharmacy does offer a home delivery service but this soon became swamped with extra requests for deliveries.

Slots for home grocery deliveries from the major supermarkers soon filled up with the next available slots often being months away.

The Parish Council wanted to do something to help the community in these difficult times and came up with the following strategy to assist.

We decided to offer the following services that we felt would take some of the strain and stress from people - 

Free Home Shopping Delivery

We contacted the local Co-op and Village Bakery to see if they would support us in getting shopping done before the shops got busy. The Co-op were kind enough to allow is in 30 minutes before opening to fulfill our orders. We paid for the shopping ourselves and set up a contactless credit/debit card reader attached to a two metre stick which allowed us to to take payment from residents upon delivery while still maintaining social distancing. 

Delivery of Prescriptions

We arranged with the village pharmacy to delivery any prescriptions they had to go out in the immediate area. This freed up their own delivery service to focus on the surrounding villages and outlying areas. 

Posting Mail

It may seem a simple thing but people were unable to post letters so we arranged to collect and post any that were requested. 

"Ring Around" Service

We worked with both the Church of England and Methodist Church ministers who co-ordinated a ring around service where people feeling isolated could pick up the phone and speak to a friendly voice. 

To manage these services we set up a central hotline number for residents to call. The number was set up in such a way that any of us could take the calls through a hunt-group on or mobile phones. This ensured calls were not missed when we were out and about delivering. Orders were written down on pre-printed forms and collected from the shops the next morning. 

The letter below was produced and posted through every door in Bellingham, Redesmouth and Charlton to advise what help was available. It also gave details of other local shops that were providing their own home delivery services. 

A poster was also produced that was put up in all local noticeboards and shop windows.

The service ran Monday to Saturday for three months until the shielding rules ended and supermarket home delivery availability improved.

Two weeks before the delivery service ended the following letter was posted through homes who were still using the service - 

Weekly Lockdown Quiz

As people were unable to go out, Friday night became quiz night! We held a weekly quiz via the Parish Council's Facebook Page. 

Posters were put up around the village to promote the events which regularly had in excess of 30 participants. There were no prizes, it was just for fun!

Over the three month period we fulfilled 280 shopping orders, delivered 75 prescriptions and posted 12 items of mail. 

We received the following thank you from Northumberland County Council and were featured in the Hexham Courant.