Dartmoor community comes together to establish coronavirus support scheme

The Moretonhampstead Parish Council and Dartmoor charities Wellmoor and Morecare Moretonhampstead have joined forces in order to establish a public Care Line service as part of the local coordinated response to the Coronavirus emergency.

Care Line provides practical and emotional support to anyone who needs it by connecting them with support network of local volunteers or just offering a friendly listening ear.

Daily phone calls are offered to help those who are self-isolating or feeling lonely to feel more connected, and Care Line can also help arrange support with various tasks such as picking up shopping or prescriptions, posting mail, taking pets to the vet, or transport to emergency medical appointments. 

Chairman of Wellmoor, Richard Foxwell says, ‘We are acutely aware of the pressures under which NHS and Social Care services are working – and that these pressures will grow over the coming weeks. Care Line should help to alleviate some of those pressures. For example, the Health Centre have been referring people to Care Line to help them access their prescriptions.’

Georgina Rayner who operates Care Line added, ‘There has been a huge outpouring of help in the community, we currently have over 120 people on our volunteer database. It has been wonderful to see the community pull together at such a difficult time and we are hearing wonderful stories – a couple of people said they don’t know what they would have done without it.’

Care Line is a true collaboration between different community organisations, with the Parish Council compiling the volunteer database, Morecare taking initial calls on their Freephone number and Wellmoor helping to link the two together.

It operates within the parishes of Moretonhampstead, North Bovey, Manaton, Lustleigh, Bridford and Postbridge, but will offer support to anyone in the area and will try to redirect those in need to local support that is available.

To contact Care Line, call Freephone 0800 622 6245 or email georgina@wellmoor.org.uk. If you would like to join as a volunteer, email moretonhampsteadpc@tiscali.co.uk.