Hospital Evening Visiting Scheme

The free Hospital Evening Visiting Scheme will help people visit their relatives and loved ones. The door-to-door service will be comfortable and safe, with friendly volunteer drivers. The pilot service will run until March 2008.

Introducing...The Hospital Evening Visiting Scheme

Every Monday to Friday during evening visiting times, a voluntary car scheme and a minibus will do visiting runs to the RAH (Paisley), Hairmyres, Victoria Infirmary and the Southern General Hospitals.

The service is based on a successful scheme run in Glasgow and is a joint initiative of Community Transport Glasgow, Strathclyde Partnership for Transport, NHS Greater Glasgow & Clyde, East Renfrewshire Community Health & Care Partnership and Voluntary Action East Renfrewshire.

The service is free and all you’ll have to do is ring the booking hotline on 0845 128 4027 and tell them which hospital you want to visit.  A volunteer driver will then pick you up at home, drive you to the hospital and then drive you back home (if required).

Sounds great - but who's the project for?

Community transport can help in so many ways. It can help improve people’s access to health services or help the housebound just get out for a while.

If you live within East Renfrewshire then you can access this door to door service. In the event of this service being oversubscribed priority will be given to your nearest hospital, older people, individuals with a disability and those on a low income or in receipt of benefits.

What time commitment is there?

The service relies on the goodwill of volunteer car owners who want to make a difference to the community. We are very lucky to have two local organisations helping with this service: Retired & Senior Volunteer Programme (RSVP East Renfrewshire) and Age Concern Eastwood. Volunteers from these local partner organisations have kindly agreed to help us get the service up and running.

But we are looking for more volunteers of all ages!

If you have a car, and a couple of free evenings a week, we would love to hear from you. All travel expenses will be covered. Volunteers will have a chance to develop and share new skills (for example Passenger Assistant Training Scheme - PATS and Minibus Driver Awareness Scheme - MiDAS), make new friends, enhance your CV and influence career choices.

How do I get involved?

To get involved in the Hospital Evening Visiting Scheme, or for more info, give Gordon a call on 0141 876 9555, or click here to contact Gordon via email or come into our base at underCOVER, 56 Kelburn Street, Barrhead, G78 1LR. 

You’d be making a real difference for people in the community!


The Hospital Evening Visiting Scheme is supported by: