Latest news with #vulnerablesupport
BBC News
14 hours ago
- General
- BBC News
Elmbridge Borough Council plans overhaul of community services
Community services in a Surrey borough are due to be overhauled under plans to reach more people and move away from supporting only the Borough Council has outlined plans to stop its meals on wheels service and hand over the running of its six community centres, among other authority says one in nine of its residents is experiencing financial hardship but that its current community services help fewer than 1% of the Elmbridge member Gill Coates said the council would be moving away from a "buildings based" service. "At the moment our services are entirely focused on the elderly and we know that about 11.7% of people in Elmbridge are vulnerable or in need of some support and that is across a different demographic," Coates told BBC Radio said this included young people, unpaid carers, people from ethnic minority backgrounds, some without English as a first language, and working previously voiced concerns when the running of Thames Ditton Community Centre was handed over to Vital Village. The council could reduce its spending on community services by £1m each year under the proposed changes, but said there would be initial investment to support the transition said the council would be "spending less but reaching more people"."That's not to say that we're going to stop supporting those people, they will remain very much of what we're doing, but it's broadening and helping more." Alex Munro, the rector at St Peter's Church in West Molesey, said there were "big gaps" in those being supported in the church and its partners offer support through homeless shelters, a foodbank and youth groups including working alongside the council."We're a last chance saloon for quite a lot of people," he plans are due to be decided by the council's cabinet later this month.
The Guardian
24-06-2025
- The Guardian
‘Just reach out to us': the Nationwide team helping vulnerable customers
The woman at the other end of the line sounds frantic. She's been ill and needs help sorting out some payments, but when Meg from Nationwide calls, she starts to talk about other things that are on her mind. Less than half an hour later, she confides that she's thinking of suicide and has even worked out how and where she could do it. On another day, a follow-up call to someone who reported being a fraud victim quickly takes a troubling turn. The woman's account has been used without her permission, but it was an abusive partner rather than an unknown scammer who was to blame. When Nicky asks her to explain what's happened, she tells a harrowing story involving a sexual assault and years of financial and coercive control. She had thought her former partner was taking her phone to stop her from using it, but he was actually using it to raid her accounts. These are glimpses into the work of Nationwide's specialist support team, a group whose job it is to help vulnerable customers. The building society let me listen to some of the many and varied cases its staff deal with on a daily basis. The calls highlight how money worries often go hand in hand with other problems – and, it seems, how difficult it can be for people to access help elsewhere. 'Every single week we'll see a brand-new situation, and I think it depends very much on what's going on in the outside world,' says Shannon Hancock, the specialist support team manager. 'You may have heard of [the Netflix TV show] Adolescence – that has drawn calls from people in a similar situation.' A small number of cases they have dealt with have involved exploitation – for example, children being blackmailed to send nude photos – and the team has acted on safeguarding concerns. Most banks and building societies have similar teams in place, although the type of help they focus on varies. Nationwide's team was set up 10 years ago, and its original focus was on supporting the building society's members (its equivalent of customers) who were having problems with payments because they had cancer. It worked closely with the charity Macmillan and helped people find and access any help they were entitled to, as well as addressing any problems they were having with their mortgages or other Nationwide products. A decade later, it's helped more than 100,000 people, and the workload has evolved. A big part of the now 50-strong team's job is to handle payments for people who can't bank online or get out to a branch. These customers have been identified, or have come forward, as being in need of extra help or support. Tina Grainger, Nationwide's head of specialist customer support, says some people ring 100 times a month over a period of years for this type of help. But alongside those cases are the more complicated issues involving domestic abuse, bereavement or incapacity. For these, says Grainger, 'there are not black and white solutions, but we have the time, we have the mandate and we have the resources'. Calls like the ones above are 'the lowest volume, but they are the highest impact', she says. Support is given to those taking them but, Grainger says: 'Not everyone could be on our team. You have to have a high level of resilience.' There are about 350 calls a day and, although most are not dramatic, they are all important to the people involved. I listen to a call in which Sarah speaks to a man who had fallen behind on his mortgage after his disability benefits were stopped. His family had stepped in and cleared his debt, but the team wanted to be sure that he was happy with the arrangements. During a long chat, Sarah checked if he needed help challenging the benefits decision, or with payments. When he said he felt guilty about getting his family's help, she was kind and reassuring. When she told him: 'If you do ever start experiencing financial difficulty, just reach out to us – we do have teams who can help,' his relief was audible. Calls can last from 10 minutes to two hours – the team typically work from home, and there's no clock ticking down or screen telling them that people are waiting. Listening, it's striking how valuable it is for people to be able to talk to someone who has plenty of time, with the clout of a big organisation. When the team calls the police or someone's doctor (with their permission) to report an emergency, things happen. As a result of the calls I heard, payments were sorted, the woman whose former partner had raided her account was refunded, and the woman contemplating suicide got help from her doctor. They were lifechanging – and sometimes lifesaving – conversations. * In the UK and Ireland, Samaritans can be contacted on freephone 116 123, or email jo@ or jo@ In the US, you can call or text the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline on 988, chat on or text HOME to 741741 to connect with a crisis counsellor. In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is 13 11 14. Other international helplines can be found at
BBC News
12-05-2025
- Politics
- BBC News
Disability benefits: Criticism of 'poorly thought-out' changes
Families of disabled people have spoken out against proposed changes to key disability government said it would tighten assessments for how much those receiving personal independence payments (Pip) would be paid for daily living, a component of the payments which is based on someone's ability to carry out day-to-day Pringle from Corby, Northamptonshire, has a nephew with severe learning difficulties - she described the plans as "poorly thought-through" and said they would strip vulnerable people of essential Department for Work and Pensions said the reforms were driven by a "determination to help more people into work" but acknowledged public concerns. Ms Pringle said her 32-year-old nephew had been "diagnosed with the mind of an eight-year-old, and that won't change"."He couldn't go to the bottom of the street without getting lost. There's no way he could work," she said. In March, the government released a green paper to spell out the details of its proposed shake-up of the benefits changes will make it harder for people with less severe conditions to claim disability payments. Extra benefit payments for health conditions will also be frozen for current claimants and nearly halved for new government has not given a precise breakdown of the forecast savings but the bulk are expected to come from changes to eligibility for disability than 40 MPs, including the Labour MP for Corby and East Northamptonshire, Lee Barron, said proposed welfare savings worth £5bn a year by 2030 had "caused a huge amount of anxiety and concern among disabled people and their families". 'Wouldn't survive' Ms Pringle's sister currently pays for her son to attend a specialist charity service which provides stability, structure and social contact. "He wouldn't survive without them," she said. "It will affect his social life, it will affect him in himself. It will be like an able-bodied adult losing their salary."Ms Pringle also described how her nephew needs constant personal care, including help showering, regular changes of underwear, and a new mattress every three months. Under the proposed reforms, she fears he will lose all of his benefit. 'Extremely stressful' Julie, also from Corby, said her 16-year-old daughter, who is autistic and has ADHD, relies on Pip to cover essential costs, including travel to college and private medication."We use her Pip money for failings in other areas," she said. "It's extremely stressful. If this is pulled away from her, she won't be able to go and fulfil her desires of doing a degree. "All she wants is the same opportunities as everybody else."The Department for Work and Pensions said there were about 370,000 current Pip recipients who would no longer qualify once the changes were will get a chance to vote on the plans because the government needs to pass primary legislation to make the changes to welfare legislation is due to be published this month before making its way through Parliament in June. Follow Northamptonshire news on BBC Sounds, Facebook, Instagram and X.
