Search results for ‘Subject term:"older people"’ Sort:
Results 1 - 1 of 1
The delivery and management of telephone befriending services - whose needs are being met?
- Authors:
- KIME Nicky, CATTAN Mima, BAGNALL Anne-Marie
- Journal article citation:
- Quality in Ageing and Older Adults, 13(3), 2012, pp.231-240.
- Publisher:
- Emerald
Call in Time was a national pilot programme consisting of 8 telephone support projects for older people in England and Scotland managed by voluntary or charitable organisations and funded by Help the Aged. This article describes part of the evaluation of the programme which explored organisational issues and views of the individuals who managed the telephone support services. Information for the evaluation was gathered from project co-ordinators through semi-structured interviews and a Delphi style questionnaire survey (a structured group interaction process including opinion collection and feedback). The article discusses the study findings, including the four key issues which emerged from the data analysis: operational structure, promotion and publicity, recruitment of volunteers, and referral processes. It reports that project co-ordinators wanted more autonomy and the flexibility to respond to older people's needs, clear referral pathways linking voluntary and statutory bodies, long-term funding, and involvement of co-ordinators and older people in planning and delivery. It concludes that although the projects were found to provide a much-needed service for socially isolated and lonely older people, there were restricting factors which hampered the day-to-day operation of the services.