(incorporating Welcome Home from Hospital)

Care Network’s Help at Home service has been set up to offer practical and emotional help for people being discharged from hospital or who have an illness at home. Our police trained and checked volunteers can offer help with practical tasks for example : shopping, collecting prescriptions, arranging services such as meal delivery or to help you regain confidence after an illness. This list isn’t comprehensive, if there’s anything else you may need help with please ask us.

Last year we directly helped over 850 clients by either helping them to settle back home after a hospital stay, or support them to remain at home when they were at risk of a hospital admission or carry out a one off task to help them stay independent in their own home. 

 How much does it cost?

The service is free for 3 weeks, if you contact us after a hospital stay or an illness at home.  Our service is also free if you are referred for help by a health or social care professional.

For one-off tasks which will help you remain independent, we ask if you’d consider a donation towards our costs.

Who comes to help and when?

Visits are arranged by a Care Network Help at Home Coordinator, a member of staff, at a time to suit you and the helper. The help arranged is given by volunteers, who offer their time freely.

All staff and volunteers are fully trained by Care Network and police DBS (CRB) checked. They carry and ID badge. They do not visit unannounced to protect the resident’s safety.

We expect to help with short-term request as a rule. Regular help may sometimes be offered if there are volunteers free and, in those cases, we will try to arrange for the same volunteer to visit each time.

How to ask for the service?

Anyone can ask for the service it just takes a phone call to your local service see below.

Could you join our volunteers?

If you are interested in becoming a volunteer for us, we’d like to chat to you about what would be involved. You wouldn’t have to make a regular time commitment, so please get in touch even if you can only help occasionally. We pay any out of pocket expenses, give training and support.

Your local service

Help at Home – East Cambs – 01353 772169

Help at Home – South Cambs – 01223 714433

Help at Home – Hunts and Fens – 01354 694413

Click here to download a volunteer application pack