As a dark cloud descends on Britain, YOU have been its silver lining

FROM THE FOUNDER OF HELP FORCE, A STIRRING TRIBUTE...

THE national emergency could not be more stark. This novel coronavirus threatens to overwhelm our health service and those of many other rich countries.

The harrowing images last week of Italian hospitals unable to deal with the deluge of critically ill patients revealed the true scale of the challenge we all face — and why we must not flinch from tackling it.

So far, with only a few exceptions, the country’s response has been breathtaking.

On Tuesday night, the Health Secretary Matt Hancock called for an army of volunteers to come to the aid of 1.5 million especially vulnerable people who will be kept isolated indoors by the pandemic for up to three months.

Within a few hours of Mr Hancock’s appeal, more than 45,000 had signed up at the website goodsamapp.org/NHS.

Compassion

And last night the number rose above 500,000 — far more than the 250,000 the Government originally hoped for.

Of course, that is something to be cheered. Yet such is the scale of this epidemic, still more volunteers will be needed to perform critically important tasks such as delivering drugs, medical supplies and food, driving patients to appointments or home after being discharged from hospital, and — just as essentially — being on the end of a phone to offer compassion and understanding to those who will feel lonely, frightened and isolated in these dark times.

That means even those of us who can’t leave our homes at all, for one reason or another, can still come to the aid of the NHS at this perilous point in its history. You could be one of them. Even before this crisis, the Daily Mail had shown itself to be a pioneer in recruiting NHS volunteers, bringing all its campaigning zeal and experience to launch the Helpforce campaign over the Christmas period in 2018.

Over the course of just a few weeks, an incredible 34,000 readers pledged to donate more than a million hours of their time to do voluntary work for their local hospitals.

As Mr Hancock said this week, that initiative ‘inspired an incredible reaction... right now we need that generosity more than ever and I would urge any Mail readers who feel able to do so to sign up as NHS Volunteer Responders as part of the national effort.’

I loudly echo that call. As the founder of Helpforce, a national movement to improve the lives of NHS staff, patients and communities through volunteering, I have seen with my own eyes the amazing feats that can be achieved by the British people when they pull together in the common interest.

The Helpforce campaign showed that even seemingly small jobs such as fetching coffee, helping to push patients in wheelchairs, making beds and scrubbing mattresses are of invaluable help in stretched and busy wards.

Take lawyer Roy Hammond, who was 52 when he was inspired to get stuck in with Helpforce by the Mail’s campaign and by the work his son, a radiotherapist, was doing in the Arden Cancer Research Centre at University Hospital Coventry.

‘I volunteer for two half-days a month in the same cancer ward my son works in,’ he said. ‘When I take off my work jacket and put on my volunteer badge, it is the best feeling.

‘I make tea and coffee and talk to the patients who are having treatment. Some are there for up to eight hours a day and they can get lonely.

‘I highly recommend volunteering in a hospital. The doctors and nurses stop me when they see my volunteer badge to say thank you, which makes me feel like a valuable part of the team.’

I’ve heard so many volunteers echo Roy and say how much hospital staff appreciate the tasks that they do. One is A- level student Maisy, who fits her work as a trained dementia support worker around her studies.

She visits patients and chats to them, which can be a challenge when their dementia is advanced, but everyone who knows her at the Royal Cornwall Hospitals Trust says her kindness and patience shine through.

Although volunteering can be challenging, she says, ‘having the opportunity to interact with patients on a regular basis and really making a difference to their hospital stay and wellbeing is simply fantastic’.

Hundreds of thousands of people are about to discover the truth in Maisy’s words.

The onslaught of volunteers standing up to be counted in this emergency — giving up their precious time and bonding against a common foe — speaks to me of the deeply altruistic nature that lies at the beating heart of the British public.

With numbers like these rushing forward in just a matter of hours, who now could call this a selfish society?

Eager

So, how do you get involved? To sign up, download the smartphone app from good

samapp.org/NHS and switch your online status to ‘on duty’.

Then there are three main ways to volunteer. The first is simply talking over the phone to people in the most vulnerable bracket, the 1.5 million men, women and children with underlying health conditions such as cystic fibrosis, cancer and pregnant women with severe heart disease.

These people can be the most vulnerable to complications of Covid-19.

Even to be on the other end of a phone can help people who are living in quarantine to remain cheerful, chipping away at their loneliness.

The second option for volunteers is to drop off prescriptions and food packages. It goes without saying that this will be vital, even lifesaving, in many cases.

The third volunteering option is to act as a driver for people who may need a lift. You might also be asked to transfer equipment, supplies and medication between NHS sites, and to assist pharmacies with deliveries.

Given that so many people are not working at the moment, an unusually large part of the nation’s workforce is available and eager to help.

Generous

It is an army of kindness — and one that signifies something profound and heartening in our nature.

In moments of crisis, the British public has always come through, in ways both great and small.

Here in the small Suffolk village where I live, everyone seems to be volunteering to help and small businesses are offering all sorts of generous additional services, such as free deliveries.

My instinct tells me the same is happening in every town and village across Britain. This is true ‘community in action’.

I especially want to salute the work done by the Royal Voluntary Service ( RVS), which is running the Good Sam scheme.

The RVS was founded just before World War II in 1938, to encourage women to sign up as air-raid wardens in the event of bombing.

More than a million women came forward to help.

Today, the RVS is still an amazing organisation helping those most in need.

Over the next few weeks, your help could mean the difference between coping and catastrophe for our beloved NHS.

In good time, this dark cloud will pass. And by volunteering now, we can all become the silver lining.