Parish Council Coronavirus Update

Published: 24 March 2020

The Parish Council has been working with local residents and organisations to establish a centralised community-based support system for Haddenham residents to use in these most difficult and unprecedented times.

Stopping the transmission of the virus is our main priority and this should be at the forefront of everyone’s daily routines. We need to set processes in place so we can all comply with the Government and NHS guidelines. We all need to stay at home as much as possible, and only go out for essential shopping or medicines, or one outing for exercise per day.

Many residents are already self-isolating either because they are in a higher risk group or because they are showing symptoms of the disease, and this situation will become more widespread over the coming months. Please stay at home if you are in the high risk group or think you are infected and ask for help if you need it, we want to reduce the number of deaths in our village.

Haddenham is a strong community where we already look out for one another and there are many people coming forward with offers of help. Many of you will already be providing support to family, friends and neighbours. We now need to channel that support to make sure it is always getting to where it is most needed, and people don’t fall through the gaps. We also need to make sure, as far as we can, that proper safeguarding and protection of volunteers is in place so people can ask for and receive help without fear of additional danger. The community support network will be an evolving process as we respond to the needs of the community.

We must emphasise that this is not an emergency service, we can’t give medical advice and you should contact NHS 111 or dial 999 in case of a medical emergency.

As of today, we are issuing a Call For Volunteers. There will be a variety of ways you can volunteer, please go to the Parish Council website and fill in the form so we can collect some details to record and match volunteers with suitable tasks. The Parish Council is a registered data controller and sharing your information with us will be GDPR compliant. Any volunteers who visit other people’s homes will be DBS checked if they aren’t already. Safeguarding the vulnerable and protecting volunteers will remain a priority despite the urgency of the situation.

This will be a long haul so we will need to make sure the effort is spread evenly as we need to ensure that no one gets exhausted which would reduce their own defences against infection. We will need a pool of volunteers because it is inevitable that people who are volunteering will get Covid-19 and will have to isolate and quarantine the household for 14 days, and will then need support themselves.

Therefore, because no communication channel reaches everyone in a community we would ask everyone reading this to also let friends and neighbours in the village know about the Call for Volunteers, so everyone has the chance to add their name to the list.

In parallel, we are also issuing a Call for Help Needed arising from this emergency. We need to know who needs help, what help they need, and when they will need it. We need to know what people will need to enable them to stay in their own homes, to get supplies of medicines and food, and to cope. It’s important that no vital needs are overlooked and we can be confident here are no gaps.

The priorities are these:

1. Stopping the spread of the virus – making sure that those who are able to go out are encouraged to follow the social distancing guidelines. We will be working with shop owners to offer support to ensure social distancing in their premises and with delivery services to ensure contactless delivery. Any business requiring this support should email the helpline without delay.

2. Medicine - we are already working with the Fish Scheme to help package and deliver medication from Vickery Pharmacy at the Medical Centre to those who are self-isolating. You may have seen on the news the national crisis in pharmacies so we would urge you to only ask for a repeat prescription if you need it at this time, not to stock up. Our thanks go to the Fish Scheme volunteers who have stepped in so quickly to help with this.

3. Food - One of the main problems people are facing is food supplies and we are working on ways to make sure everyone has access to basic supplies. This is complicated as it involves financial transactions so we are looking at ways we can simplify this without the need for volunteers who deliver food to be involved in finances. We will update on this in the next few days.

4. Social Isolation – is one of the main challenges people will face. People seeking the social contact that all people need will be one of the main causes of transmission of the disease unless we acquire new ways of socialising that are safe while this pandemic runs its course. Rest assured that we will work with the community to ensure no one is socially isolated. Simple ideas such as phone buddies, virtual pubs and virtual coffee mornings using phones (mobile and landline), computers and so on will be central to this. We welcome ideas in this area, and would ask people lacking either the technical means, or expertise, to socialise by phone or internet to let us know so we can help. We also are asking people who know someone in that situation who may not be able to contact us themselves to similarly alert us to the situation. This will enable us to organise practical solutions and deliver them first to those who need them the most.