Hampshire County Council

In response to Coronavirus (COVID19), local authorities across Hampshire, including the County Council and all the districts and boroughs, joined forces with the county’s community and voluntary sector, to ensure vulnerable people were able to access the support they needed during the pandemic – Hampshire County Council (2020)

Having the agility, technology and customer service expertise, Impact Call Centre partnered with Hampshire County Council to support that service to provide a new helpline called ‘Hantshelp4vulnerable’ for frail or vulnerable residents who didn’t have support from families, friends or their local community, and who needed urgent assistance with practical issues.

Impact’s customer service staff delivered an empathetic, friendly and professional ‘front line’ for all calls regarding Covid19, providing advice and information and practical support in line with the latest government and NHS guidance updates.  Working closely with Hampshire County Council, we continually adapted and enhanced the service to ensure we met the needs of Hampshire residents as we moved through each stage of the pandemic.

Using our powerful scripting and survey tool with conditional formatting, we were able to ask relevant questions to understand the residents need to ensure they received the help they needed. When we provided verbal advice and information, if required by the caller, we were also able to send confirmation of this by text and/or email, giving the caller further reassurances of correct information.  For those shielding or self-isolating who had urgent welfare needs, such as those at risk of loneliness or needing essential food or household supplies and/or collection of medication, we were able to refer to the  relevant ‘Local response centre’ in each Hampshire district, which ensured the resident received local help in a timely manner.

For those residents that had complex social care needs or urgent requests, we were able to book in appointments with a member of the County Council team, by integrating Hampshire County’s diary system into our own software. This meant we could always confirm with the caller the real time availability of appointments and where necessary transfer over by phone those that required immediate assistance.

Due to the flexibility of our system and the adaptability of our staff, we were able to respond to Hampshire County Councils requests to add additional partners and provision into the service, allowing us to further enhance the support to residents, by providing extended advice and support, such as helping residents get online during the pandemic and referring when relevant to organisations such as MIND, Autism Hampshire and to the Citizens Advice Bureau for those with economic and financial hardship queries.  To reflect how the helpline had broadened in purpose and audience, it was rebranded by Hampshire County Council to ‘Hampshire Coronavirus Support and Helpline’ to convey that advice and support could be provided to anyone where coronavirus had had an impact on themselves or any aspect of their life, including anyone who was self isolating.

We also integrated Hampshire County Councils new outbound Wellbeing Automated Call Service (WACS) system into the helpline, which meant over 50,000 vulnerable people shielding at home could be contacted quickly to check whether any help or assistance was required. If the resident said they needed support, they were diverted back to Impact where a friendly customer service advisor was ready to listen and understand the need and provide immediate support. We feel proud to have been involved in the development and implementation of the WACS system that has been widely recognised, recently winning the Amazon Web Services Global Public Sector Partner Award.

Given the nature of the call types we were handling and the pace at which information was changing from the government, it was crucial we could capture and provide extensive data.  Using our powerful data warehouse, we were able to service all requirements and provided daily, weekly and monthly reporting that allowed Hampshire County Council to provide high levels of assurance to elected members, partners and the public that the needs of the most vulnerable residents in Hampshire were being met.