Leitrim Covid-19 Response Helpline

Dear Secretary,

I am writing to you to give you an update in relation to the Leitrim Covid 19 Community Response Helpline. We are receiving a steady number of calls from the helpline mainly from over 70s who are cocooning. They are in need of various supports such as shopping, prescriptions, dog walking services. Once Leitrim Community Support Line log a call, our operators will contact the key contact in each club to ask them to support us to volunteer their services. Any local arrangements you currently have in place with local supermarkets/pharmacies, please continue with same arrangements.

We want to clarify the situation in relation to the Supervalu, Centra and GAA Club Together as per discussions with Musgraves. Their call centre are now reverting all calls through our Leitrim Covid-19 Community Response Line for our area. In this regard, we will be asking the volunteers to assist us as follows;

The volunteer makes contact with the vulnerable individual to get the shopping list after a referral with ticket number from Leitrim Covid-19 Community Response Team.

1. Volunteer carries out the shopping for the individual. At the checkout the volunteer informs the cashier they represent Leitrim Community Response and are completing shopping on behalf of a vulnerable a person as part of the Club Together initiative. The Volunteer will need to present a letter of verification (issued by Leitrim County Council on behalf of the forum on request from volunteer groups) to authenticate who they are.
2. Two receipts will issue:

a. Volunteer is given one receipt to give to the vulnerable person and should record the shop phone number on the back
b. Cashier records name and phone number of individual and call ticket number on the back of other receipt and held in the shop.

3. Volunteer then delivers the shopping and the receipt to the vulnerable person informing them that payment over the phone with a credit/debit card will need to be made directly to the Shop between 7 pm to 9 pm that evening and that the direct dial is on the back of the receipt.
4. Volunteer to call the Leitrim Community Support helpline 1800 852 389 to confirm request has been handled, quoting ticket number.

Suzanne Duffy

Leitrim Covid 19 Community Response Helpline