Tammy is one of our amazing volunteers who joined us in November 2020, Tammy lives in London but enquired about the position as she wanted to do something but couldn’t find anything suitable near her. As the opportunity was for Telephone Befriending we agreed she could take on the role.
Tammy originally made 5 calls a week to participants often laughing about her accent, it quickly became apparent that Tammy had a knack for engaging with those that seemed at the offset to be sceptical about the scheme. She really had a way of getting some of our older independent ladies to take advice and seek local advice when needed, she even managed to convince a stubborn lady to accept carers into her home to assist her, when nobody else could.
Tammy has been talking to June, a very independent 91 year old for a few months. June really looks forward to the calls despite initially saying she wasn’t bothered and she had nothing to say to anyone. June has numerous health complaints, which puts an enormous amount of stress on her daughter as June will not accept outside help, or have an operation for her cataracts or other medical conditions!
Tammy called me one morning really concerned about June, she hadn’t been able to speak with her for a while but managed to speak to her daughter that morning. It transpires that June had been in hospital, had to have blood transfusions and has now been discharged home.
Tammy said the last time she spoke to Martha she advised her to speak to her daughter and to ring the GP or go to hospital as she had a medical problem that she was keeping to herself, thankfully this is advice she took and she told her daughter that Tammy had said she should seek medical advice.
When Tammy called her this morning (she was still concerned as she hadn’t answered the phone previously), her daughter picked up, June was unable to get to the phone because she was in bed and her daughter didn’t know what to do for the best. She told Tammy that June had been discharged from hospital without a care plan or medical advice, and she didn’t know what to do.
Tammy called me and I called Alison at social prescribing to see if anything could be done. To cut a long story short , thanks to our wonderful volunteer and swift action from Alison, rapid response will now be in place to help June at home , her daughter gets the respite she needs knowing June will be cared for.
Our volunteer is still calling June for updates, unfortunately due to her being in bed she is not able to answer the phone but Tammy calls intermittently and if her daughter or the careers pick up she passes a message to June to let her know we are thinking of her and that she hopes they get to speak again soon.