There are an abundance of community services that are available to people and can be set up to come right to you. Whether for the purposes of enjoyment, enrichment or day to day help, we want to let you know about a few of the community services available to you.
Home Library Services
If you or a loved on is a bookworm then this could be the perfect service for you. You can use the home library services if you can’t get to the library yourself, whether that be because of your age, disability, poor physical or mental health, caring responsibilities or mobility problems. You can have friends, relatives, carers etc collect books for you or if you can’t arrange for someone to collect things for you, a volunteer can deliver books to you free of charge.
Available to borrow:
- Books and audiobooks
- Music CDs
- DVDs
- Large print books
- Children’s books
- Information books
How it works
If you are interested in joining the Home Library Service or for more information call 0300 123 6703 or email: library@lancashire.gov.uk.
A library or volunteer officer will then visit you at home. They will:
- Help you join the library if you are not already a member
- Discuss authors and genres that you like or dislike
- Ask if you prefer large print or audio books
- Put together a detailed reader profile which the library staff will use to choose books that match your interests.
If you have a relative, friend or neighbor to collect your books they can do this every four weeks from the most convenient local library. But, if a volunteer delivers books to you, they will visit you every four weeks on an agreed day.
You can ask the volunteer for specific titles or authors and they will pass this information onto library staff – or library staff can choose CDs, audio books and DVD’s for you.
There’s no reason to worry about returning your loans within a certain timeframe as there are no fines or overdue charges for Home Library Service customers. Read more about Home Library Services here:
Dial – A – Ride / Ring & Ride Services
Dial a ride is a service that you can book to come to your home and provides a door to door wheelchair accessible minibus service for people who are unable to use, or don’t have any, regular bus services. These buses do not follow any set routine or timetable and instead can be flexible in responding to individual needs or repeat requests. Many people use this service for things such as shopping or healthcare appointments. It is a very friendly service that can also offer that bit of social contact during journeys – especially for those who may become repeat customers.
Ring & Ride is a very similar service and more prevalent in the Bury Borough:
‘Ring & Ride provide accessible, low cost transport to disabled people and older people with walking difficulties. If you qualify, you can book a Ring & Ride accessible minibus to take you, and an accompanying adult, door to door for journeys of up to 6 miles in Greater Manchester.’
There are some exceptions when it comes to travelling more than 6 miles as long as it is still within the Greater Manchester area, such as hospital visits or travel to the nearest town centre.
Find out more information about Ring & Ride here: https://tfgm.com/public-transport/ring-and-ride-minibusesRegister here: https://tfgm.com/public-transport/ring-and-ride-minibuses-registration
Assisted bin collection services
Assisted bin collection services can be found through local councils and are a great public tool to arrange assistance for residents who are unable to wheel their own bins to the kerbside for collection because of disability, ill health or if you are an older adult or have mobility problems. This is a free service to provide help to those who need it and upon qualifying, helpers will collect your bins from an agreed collection point at your home and return them to this collection point after emptying.
Help with tasks such as this can be a great help on the day to day. You can read more and about how to apply here.
There are so many great community services available to you out there that can be used to help with your day to day life and help to make things more accessible for you.
For more information about our homecare services, visit our website today.
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