In order to help the community access a stable and regular supply of food and supplies, we are now working with a number of local suppliers to provide a food delivery/collection service that will allow members of the community to receive food deliveries at home and avoid the need to travel to Dunoon, Rothesay or Tighnabruaich. Such shopping trips are costly, time consuming and, most importantly, expose members of our community to potential infection. The following food delivery/collection services will be available

Fynest Fish Robert tried to maintain his service but as from 27th March he has no other option than to temporarily suspend service for the time being.. till life returns to normal.

The Great British Food Hub in Dunoon also delivers to Colglen fopr a £3.- charge

Loch Fyne local home delivery has an extensive range of fresh and smoked fish, fresh oysters, dairy products, flour, pasta, meat, fresh fruit & vegetables, wines, beers, spirits and other essential items for delivery in Cowal.

Shellfield Farm Within the next few weeks, Nikki & Fraser will be launching a range of homemade farm2fork frozen ready meals for safe home delivery to your doorstep. These will be sold as single or 2 person portions with prices starting at £5.50 and £8.50. Initial recipes will be Beef Bourguignon, Cottage Pie, Veggie Shepherds Pie and Fish Pie, with more to be added in the future. Please contact on 07799 137779 or shellfieldfarm@outlook.com to join their mailing list; follow their social media pages/ website for up to date info on launch date, offers and pricing

Colintraive Hotel Clare has offered to take orders from the community and place them with her suppliers. Orders can be collected from the hotel at a pre-arranged time slot or delivered to your door. Orders placed by 5pm Sunday will be ready for collection/delivery on the following Friday. To place an order, please call Clare on 01700 841207. To make the process as efficient and cost effective as possible, only one brand of each product will be available, depending on supply chain capacity. New items will be added over the next few weeks. Below an order form which can be used to order over the phone or emailed. An online ordering form will be available soon. Clare can also order meat from McQueens in Rothesay and venison from Winston Churchill to avoid multiple delivery charges
Food list in xls format
Pricelist in pdf format

Nikki and Clare have both offered to set up accounts to make payment easier as we would like to avoid the use of cash for safety reasons. Payment can be made over the phone or by bank transfer.

Our aim in setting up this arrangement is twofold. Firstly, we feel it is vital that the community has a secure, safe and cost effective supply of food and groceries for the next few weeks and months. Secondly, it is important that we support our local businesses. We feel that this initiative helps achieve both.

If you have prescriptions that need to be collected, let us know and we can co-ordinate pickup and drop off. Tighnabruaich surgery prescriptions will be delivered.

If you have any questions about this service please contact one of our Community Resilience Volunteers

Dear Community Member,

The next few weeks/months will be difficult for the country as Covid-19 spreads. Both the UK and Scottish Governments are putting things in place to try and slow down the spread but we as a community can also help to slow the spread down by helping those who fall ill, have to self-isolate or are vulnerable.

If you or a family member show symptoms and have to self isolate or if you are vulnerable we can help. Contact one of the numbers below and one of our volunteers will help you by:

• Collecting and delivering your shopping to your door
• Collecting and delivering medicines
• Chatting to you on the phone
• Urgent supplies

Something everyone can do:

• Phone your immediate neighbours every couple of days to check they are okay.

As the virus spreads people will become more isolated and it is important that we keep in contact and look after each other.

To get a volunteer to contact you phone our volunteers follow the instructions in the Covid-19 leaflet

Tighnabruaich Surgery
UPDATE 27th March 2020

Please note the new changes below to our Prescription Services.

APPOINTMENTS (Unchanged): Telephone 01700 811207

Appointments will continue to be made by calling the surgery and you will be offered an initial telephone appointment with the doctor or nurse. It may be decided by the doctor or nurse that you do need to come in to the surgery to be seen. You will be given a time that is safe to do so.

Please call before 11am for an appointment that day as you would normally. This allows the doctors and nurse to triage and plan their appointments appropriately. The more information you can give when booking, the easier it is to triage.

We also hope to offer video consultations with software called NearMe at some point in the near future. We will let you know more about this service when it becomes available.

PRESCRIPTIONS

We are now making further changes to how you request and receive your prescriptions.

Please request your prescription by 12:00 noon at least 1 week before you need it. This is for various reasons.

• It give us time to order and prepare your prescriptions given some supply shortages and changes to our supply chains
• There have been changes to ferry times, so all our drug orders now arrive in the afternoon
• You will now receive 2 months worth of medication to reduce the need for people to come out as often.

You can REQUEST a prescription in the following ways:

1 EMAIL (Preferred Option) to tighnabruaich.health@nhs.net
– Either photograph your completed request form and send it as an attachment
or
– Type out in full what items you would like including drug strengths

– We will confirm your request once we receive it

2 TELEPHONE (for those with no internet access) Tel: 01700 811207.
– Please call between 10.30am and 12.30pm to request by telephone. This is a time consuming option for staff as we try to ensure safe practices. We also need to keep the early mornings for appointment calls only, thank you.

NB In line with updated pharmacy guidance we are NO LONGER able to accept paper prescription requests. Please DO NOT post any further requests to us.

PRESCRIPTION DELIVERY

New pharmacy guidance is that all prescriptions are to be delivered to patients directly, reducing the number of people out and about as well as the number of people coming to the surgery who are well.

We have local volunteer groups who are set up and ready deliver scripts for us. Some people have used these services already and it is working very well.

Therefore, unless you inform us otherwise we will automatically deliver your prescription once it is ready. We hope that as many as possible will make use of the delivery service as this is the best way to keep everyone well.

Please note also that any mail posted in our external post box cannot be opened for 24 hours.

Once again, THANK YOU all for understanding the need for the above measures. These will help towards keeping everyone safe and well in our patient community.

Telephone: 01700 811207
Email: tighnabruaich.health@nhs.net

COVID-19 Volunteer Campaign Scotland

A thank you from N W S for your invaluable contribution to your Community

Coronavirus Caring for People Helpline Service

Below information on Argyll and Bute’s Caring for People Helpline to support people needing assistance during the coronavirus emergency, which may be of some use within your communities.
Caring for People helpline overview
Caring for People Helpline pathway

For help with Financial; Business; Health; Education; Registration; Social, Domestic and Medical Homecare Needs and volunteering. Read more about this new service.
01546 605524 – open 9am to 5pm, Mon-Fri
Please leave this line open for vulnerable people who may not be able to help themselves if you have other options.
An online help form is also available.

Coronavirus – help and advice is the A&B Council page providing guidance and updates on changes to services as they arise, and share information that may be of use to you.

CalMac introduces Essential Lifeline Timetable in light of Covid-19 outbreak

West Coast Ferry Operator CalMac is introducing an Essential Lifeline Timetable from tomorrow (Friday 27 March) as a result of the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic.

The new reduced timetable, which will run for an initial three-week period, comes amidst a lockdown on all but essential travel across the whole of the UK. It will be subject to continual review in a rapidly changing environment, but they believe it is sustainable with their current crews.

All islands will receive a regular lifeline service ensuring essential goods and services are delivered.

CalMac were due to transfer from their winter timetable to their normal summer timetable tomorrow but this revised timetable will come into effect instead.

In the last few days passengers on the entire service were down by 85%, cars by 75% and commercial traffic by 45%. In 2019 daily passenger numbers at the end of March were around 9,500, currently they are at 1,500 and these are expected to drop further. CalMac has also seen 8,000 bookings cancelled through their small dedicated contact centre teams compared to just 300 in the same period last year.

This new timetable will see weekly sailings drop from 2419 to 948 against the normal winter timetable – a drop of almost 61%.

‘We believe that this timetable will be able to maximise use of available crews for the vessels and continue to provide our vital lifeline service for communities, said CalMac’s Managing Director Robbie Drummond.

“These are extreme times for businesses across Scotland, the UK and indeed the world. As this virus spreads there is the chance that pressure on crewing may require us to make further changes. In this eventuality, we will work to our agreed Route Prioritisation Matrix to ensure that all Islands receive a service. We are in daily contact with the Scottish Government and Health Protection Scotland to ensure we are on top of all the latest advice and guidance.”

“Given the lockdown from the Government that has made travel essential only, we think this new timetable is one that best suits the needs of the communities we support,’ added Robbie.

“It is important that we continue to provide ferries that can take vital goods and services to our island communities and transport people who have essential travel needs. Community groups and key hauliers have been consulted to ensure that the supply chains can be maintained.”

CalMac last week announced that it was not taking any new advanced bookings on any of its routes until at least a travel date of 15 July. It has also stopped selling any food, drink or retail on board any of its vessels.

Staff at the CalMac contact centres have been swamped by a large number of calls and are having to reduce their numbers to accommodate absence. Refunds for cancelled sailings are being offered online only in a bid to relieve pressure on the centres.

Bus services are changing because of the Coronavirus (COVID 19) outbreak. Service 918, 926 and 976 will operate to a reduced timetable as of Monday 23 March. All other local bus services across Argyll and Bute will operate to a school holiday timetable from that date onwards as a result of the schools closing. Further details can be found via the individual bus operator’s website and social media.

For the alerts issued by Neighborhood Watch, please consult our special covid-19 page for these alerts

Dear Community Members

Following advice today about Covid-19 the Community Council has cancelled all meetings for the foreseeable future. The Community Councillors will continue to meet via an online conference app. If you have any issues you wish us to take up on your behalf or have any questions, you can do so by using our online form. We will post any information that we get get on our Facebook pages and on our website. Please take care and look after your health so that we can look after the health of our community.

Many of residents in ColGlen will have received a paper version of this survey in the Spring 2020 newsletter. For those who need more copies or who haven’t received the survey, please find the downloadable and printable Resilience Survey