Outside the Box is a small charity supporting communities – all over Scotland – to help make them work better for everyone. Here are a couple of snapshots of our work in rural areas.

Community Solutions is about finding practical solutions to current challenges and increasing learning and community options that give people more access to social care and health care in Scotland. People from organisations across Scotland have been sharing experiences and examples of what is working and challenges they face. The biggest impacts come when there are stronger links between formal care and support services and wider community supports that people use. Communities want to help and could do more. Some of the benefits could happen quickly.

Many of the examples come from very rural communities which face extra challenges, as in the following example from Edzell:

Edzell Community Health Transport (ECHT) provides residents of Edzell, and all patients registered with Edzell Health Centre, with transport from their home to medical appointments in Tayside or Grampian. Patients who are unable to use other forms of transport due to health problems or public transport issues can get transport to dental, podiatry, optical, hospital and other medical appointments from local volunteer drivers. Drivers are provided with full training and 45p per mile from funding and donations.

The impact so far
With cutbacks to the ambulance service in the area, ECHT provides an integral service for residents. The service helps prevent cancellation of medical appointments and patients not turning up due to transport problems. The service also provides a formal support system for patients, as opposed to relying on friends and neighbours.

Advice for others
For other organisations or groups thinking of doing something similar, try to arrange a parking agreement with companies who operate in hospitals and other medical centres so drivers have somewhere they can wait whilst patients attend their appointments. Encouraging patients to get a blue badge and bring it with them can also help. At Edzell, patients get in touch with the health centre and the Daily Coordinator sorts out all the details. For bigger projects a separate phone line or way to register may be necessary. To find out more about the project you can contact edzellhealthcentre.tayside@nhs.scot or on 01356 648209

For more Case studies see:
https://otbds.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/Community-solutionsCase-studies-1.pdf

Tealing Community Consultation
Last year Outside the Box were commissioned to undertake a community consultation in the village of Tealing to hear people’s ideas on ways to spend windfarm funding for the benefit of the community. Tealing is a spread-out rural community with the added challenge of being split down the middle by the A90. We spent time talking to people so that they could decide what was right for their community. Here is a short video about the consultation: https://otbds.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/Tealing.mp4 or you can read the full Report here: https://otbds.org/resources/tealing-final-report/

For more information on the work of Outside the Box see otbds.org or find us on Facebook.