Welcome to a volunteer
Contents
Introduction
Guidance notes
Introduction to Oxshott Care
Aim and objectives
The aim of Oxshott Care is to help anyone in the Oxshott area who is in need of non-specialist assistance.
Run by local volunteers, and co-operating with other charitable and public bodies, its services are primarily to drive clients to and from doctor or hospital appointments. Oxshott Care can also help with shopping or collections and with letters and forms. Its area of operation covers primarily the Oxshott parish area, although there is some flexibility in its boundary with neighbouring organisations.
Funding
Our modest operating expenses have to be covered entirely from voluntary donations and fund-raising. Therefore, those benefiting from its services are encouraged to make contributions, although these are entirely voluntary.
Organisation
The management committee of Oxshott Care is elected annually by the members - all of the volunteers. This committee is responsible for policy and overall administrative and financial management, and members are available for advice, suggestions or criticisms. There are duty officers, who manage the day-to-day services. You will be given contact details of all these people. Please read the privacy statements on this website and keep these details for just your personal use.
Contact system
The main contact for those who need help is through a mobile phone (07950 478329). This is answered by a duty contact officer between 9 and 12 am on weekdays (Mon-Fri) and allows messages to be left at other times. These are dealt with on the following weekday.
The duty contact officers log all calls and try to find a suitable volunteer for each request. They attempt to allocate the tasks evenly, aiming to use each volunteer once per month – except where volunteers have specifically said they are prepared to be called on more often. We handle an average of about one call per day throughout the year, although the frequency is very variable. Volunteers who find themselves being used more regularly than they would like should let us know and we will amend the operating log accordingly.
Please note that you can always see the latest information about us and our operations, and download all our forms and guidance notes on our website.
Guidance notes
General advice, confidentiality and specialist help
Oxshott Care provides only non-specialist assistance and does not ask its volunteers to undergo any training, although we occasionally arrange talks, and there are “caring” courses available should you wish to ask us about them. However, the service depends primarily on all of us helping each other, and we encourage all volunteers to come to our annual meeting, so that we can all share our experience, ideas and problems, and meet their fellow volunteers and the duty officers.
Some situations are bound to be more difficult than others. If you are unable to complete a task, or if elements of it worry you, please let the duty officer or Shona Macduff-Duncan know, so that problems do not escalate.
It must be emphasised, though, that we have a duty of confidentiality to those we help, and details of specific "cases" should not be discussed outside Oxshott Care - it is not acceptable even to talk to a client's doctor without their permission. However, you are not expected to deal with all situations without help; committee members will be happy to discuss cases with you and help to make decisions about any more specialist help that might be required.
If a client doesn’t respond at the agreed time the following procedure should be used:
1. Telephone client. (Have the client’s phone number with you!)
2. Look through windows / letterbox in case of fall etc…
3. Check with neighbours - in case of ambulance or client has popped out
4. Contact police
Continuing assistance
You should be careful not to bypass Oxshott Care by giving your telephone number to those you help, since their demands on you might easily become unmanageable and since this would also result in incomplete records of cases. Always encourage "clients" to use the central contact system - they can always ask for you, and you can let it be known whether or not you are prepared to have a continuing involvement. However if you are in agreement we will give out your number to the client in case something changes on the day of the appointment.
You should also be prepared to refuse to do more than you had anticipated. Some "clients" might make quite unreasonable demands (such as expecting shopping to be done in ten different shops or asking you to wait for hours at a hospital); if the demands are too much for you, but not unreasonable overall, they can always be allocated as another assignment.
Identification
Since the police strongly advise people not to let unknown people into their homes without identification, we should not encourage any slackening of this carefulness. You should always try to agree with the duty officer on advising the "client" of your likely arrival, and you should always be prepared to show the Oxshott Care identification slip you have been given (if you were not given one, or if you lose it, please let us know via the Oxshott Care line).
When you have been allocated a task, we ask you to contact the “client” and make sure the collection and other details are agreed between you – elderly “clients” often fret about whether, and when, they are going to have callers or be collected and a quick call can save them anxiety (and the duty officer extra calls).
Payments and contributions
While Oxshott Care has no intention of replacing, or becoming, a commercial organisation and will not refuse service on grounds of inability to pay, we are entirely funded by donations and contributions and we need to do our best to encourage "clients" to contribute in return for our help, if they can. The duty contact officers should deal with this issue when they take calls for help, and you should find clients ready to give you a suitable contribution. If you have incurred exceptional costs, such as having to pay for parking, please judge whether the amount donated can reasonably cover those costs or whether you should ask for more.
All funds collected should be submitted by one of the following ways.
1. By transfer from your account to the Oxshott Care bank account at Lloyds Bank.
Sort code: 30-99-09
Account number: 35983260
Account name: Oxshott Care
Please put as reference: Client name; your name
2. To the post-box in the lobby of the Oxshott Medical Practice in Holtwood Road along with a payment slip.
3. Give to the treasurer (Barry North – “Little Orchard”, Fairmile Park Road).
If you have run out of slips, you can print them from the download page of this website or use plain paper. In cases of non-payment of expected contributions, there is no need for great concern but it would be helpful if you let the duty officer know for future reference.
Where the task involves your buying things for a "client" not well known to us, the duty officer should have arranged for the client to give you some money before you go shopping. You should always give a receipt for these amounts and ask the "client" to sign that the amount shown is correct. You should also check whether prescriptions have been prepaid or will require payment on collection. You should then always get a receipt for all amounts spent and collect payment when delivering the “goods”. This may sound excessively formal, but we, and other organisations, have experienced cases of disagreement over amounts of prepayments and expenditures, which are hard to deal with amicably if this procedure has not been followed.
Claim / remittance forms and other material
You can get these and a variety of other Oxshott Care material from the download section of this website.
Expenses
Oxshott Care will reimburse costs incurred in carrying out its work, for those who would like it. Expense claims should be submitted, via our post box in the Oxshott Medical Practice, to the treasurer on the forms mentioned in these guidance notes.
Suggested voluntary contributions
This is the note that goes out to new clients:
“To cover our administration costs we welcome a contribution towards your journey, but it is voluntary. It is for you to decide how much you wish to give. We offer the following guide for the different journeys:
Oxshott/local £2
Cobham, Leatherhead, Esher £5
Epsom, Ashtead, Dorking £8
Chertsey, St. Helier, Guildford, Royal Marsden, Kingston, Sutton £10”
These amounts will be revised so please refer back to these notes from time to time.
Insurance
We insure Oxshott Care volunteers for third party liabilities while working for us, but that excludes incidents covered by motor insurance. Most insurers will treat any voluntary driving you do for us as “domestic use” and cover it under your own car policy, under a 2011 industry agreement. However, a few insurers are not included or require you to inform them that you are doing such work. Click for a sample letter that you can use to inform your insurer, which is also available on the download page of the website. Please also remember the law on the use of seat belts!
Please let us know if you have any suggestions for improvements to these notes.