Our Hear to Help service supports people with a hearing loss in community venues and provides home visits in Angus, Dundee City and Perth & Kinross.  Having received £6,000 from Perth and Kinross Health and Social Care Partnership we now need £12,000 (this pays for one member of staff, management costs, office overheads and volunteers' expenses) to continue running the service Tayside wide until 31 March 2018.  This will allow us time to try to secure statutory funding for the service across Tayside.

We have been overwhelmed by the backing of our #SaveHearToHelp campaign across Tayside from local people - including cross party Councillors and Members of the Scottish Parliament - and are cautiously hopeful that continued discussions with the Integrated Joint Boards (IJBs) for each of the three local health and social care partnerships will eventually deliver positive results for the people Hear to Help supports.

In the meantime, we are starting this fundraising drive in an attempt to secure the short-term future of Tayside Hear to Help, in the hope that all three IJBs will identify sustainable funding for our service ahead of the next financial year.

Action on Hearing Loss Scotland's Tayside Hear to Help service provides person-centred information and life-changing support in a relaxed, friendly environment to help people persevere with their NHS hearing aids so that they can follow conversation with famly, friends and neighbours.  

Our dedicated volunteers, many of whom have hearing loss themselves, offer reassurance to people who are struggling by sharing top tips, based on personal experiences, to help them get the best use of their hearing aids and 'fill in gaps' of conversations.  They also give advice on equipment such as amplified telephones, tv listeners and vibrating/flashing alarms that can make life easier and signpost people to other local support services, such as lipreading classes or hard of hearing groups.