April 3, 2020

Cumbria CVS response to the COVID-19 Crisis:

Cumbria CVS deployed staff to work on the response to the pandemic on 10 March 2020 – and closed our offices in Carlisle, Barrow and Cleator Moor on 16 March as part of social distancing regimen –shifting to an entirely phone, pc and web-based service almost overnight.

Since then we have been active in several areas – working with voluntary and community organisations, public and private sector and of course, hundreds of volunteers.  This note attempts to brief you on how Cumbria CVS are involved in the response.

System Engagement: Cumbria CVS staff have been deployed to provide support across all key response agencies, at county and district level.  We are also supporting the health and social care system at ICS level through the Health and Care Strategic Co-ordination Group (ICS), the System-wide Co-ordination Group (ICP), the eight existing ICC Hubs – and the new discharge hubs at Cumberland Infirmary Carlisle and West Cumberland Hospital.

Volunteering: we have seen a huge community response to the crisis, with volunteers coming in from the RVS GoodSam call (750,000) as well as the “SupportCumbria” website (990 individuals and 63 groups).  This is in addition to the 52,000 volunteers already actively engaged supporting the voluntary sector across Cumbria – and the 9,000 FTE paid staff.  We are providing the linkage between this website and local district teams as well as directing potential volunteers to existing voluntary organisations and others who have identified demand – including Community Emergency Response groups and foodbanks – supporting the most financially vulnerable in Cumbria.  Moreover, we are supporting the volunteer recruitment for the 3 “Recovery Centres” in North Cumbria – likely to require basic nursing and palliative care support (news on South Cumbria below).

Voluntary Sector: we supported the Third Sector Network Executive on 20 March 2020 to discuss the challenges and support required and available from Cumbria’s voluntary sector.  We are now calling weekly meetings to brief and be briefed by network leaders and to attempt to keep services co-ordinated.  We have also completed the first survey of what support voluntary organisations can offer – and what they need.  (Results on this from the first tranche of 200 organisations will be made available in the next week or so).

System Leadership: we have been working with colleagues from Public Health, Adult Social Care, Police, North Cumbria Integrated Care NHS Foundation Trust and many, many voluntary organisations. We identified and sourced capacity to support patient discharge from hospital through both British Red Cross and St. John Ambulance: providing medically trained, DBS checked staff with kitted vehicles.  We have led the co-ordination of “pathway zero” across North Cumbria – for those patients not requiring ongoing NHS or ASC/CCC intervention/support but who are unable to get home independently.  This is a transportation home/settling-in service – supported by welfare calls for the next five days and onward referral and support as required.  Cumbria CVS co-ordinated and negotiated this service with nine voluntary organisations and redirected NHS funding from CCVS to make a small contribution to these voluntary organisations for their support (within three days).

Business Engagement: we have brokered business support for the COVID response: linking drivers and vehicles to services needing help (e.g. Story Contracting and Petteril Community Centre); we are working with the LEP on how government guidance to business may apply to charities – and on a multi-agency group led by the LEP to begin to develop a better (more integrated, better funded, more symbiotic) relationship with business in the future.

Resource Development: we published several key documents on our website (within the week) which are in high demand and which we have made freely available: the COVID-19 Volunteer Handbook; Guidelines for using Volunteers during the pandemic; Risk Assessment for COVID-19 – and others.  We commissioned and published four animated films to support the broad public health messages.

Websites: aside from developing our own website to establish a full set of resources to support the pandemic response (www.cumbriacvs.org.uk/coronavirus) we have also supported Cumbria County Council in the development and use of the www.supportcumbria.org.uk website – for the registration of volunteer effort across the county.  So far, we have received nearly a thousand statements of interest which are being channelled across the County to areas of identified demand and to existing voluntary organisations: let us know if you need any here.

Funding:  we have directed our health and social care funding officers (North and South Cumbria) to supporting the voluntary sector apply for help from the recently established COVID-19 disaster fund at Cumbria Community Foundation.   If you need help, contact us here: cvsfunding@cumbriacvs.org.uk.  We have brokered a £50,000 donation to the CCF fund from the NENC ICS NHS Mental Health service, so that voluntary organisations can increase their support to communities who will need help for many months to come.

Communication: we have increased the circulation of our e-bulletin from monthly to twice-weekly to keep everyone informed of our work; broadened its circulation to include many more of the 2,308 voluntary sector organisations in Cumbria.  We have also delivered twice-weekly briefings to the 568 organisations who are members of our “Action for Health” networks across Cumbria – identifying funding sources and other support available – and are planning to introduce large-scale webinars and training services to reach our members.

South Cumbria: Morecambe Bay University Hospital Trust: we are working with Morecambe Bay Trust and the MB CCG to identify necessary support – attempting to further develop voluntary sector engagement.  We are providing strategic advice and seeking to build on our experience of supporting the Health and Care Sector across North Cumbria – and hoping that this will be, similarly, appropriately funded.

Business as Usual: at the same time, we have re-focussed many of our existing projects into phone, web, internet and social media-delivered services: e.g. our “Living with and beyond Cancer” project now provides phone-based “listening ear” services rather than face to face support.  We have opened our industrial kitchens in our Shaddongate centre in Carlisle to enable a local organisation to provide over 1,000 meals for NHS Diabetes patients – cooking at scale (one chef, in one day).  Just this week we have run our “Coffee and Chat” service by videoconference for our Armed Forces Veterans Link project.

David Allen
Chief Executive Officer
Cumbria CVS