THE Government has given Swindon Council more than £850,000 to introduce a scheme which aims to ease pressure on frontline health care.

On Friday, the recipients of the Transformation Challenge Award were announced and Swindon was among the successful bidders.

A sum of £866,000 will be given to the council which, working in partnership with Swindon Clinical Commission Group, will use the money to grow the Community Navigators project.

It sees health professionals identify vulnerable people who may be at risk from repeated emergency visits to the hospital and offer support to prevent this from occurring.

For example, if there is an elderly person who is at risk from tripping, aids can be installed in their home.

The overall aim is reduce the cost on the NHS by reducing the number of visits. So far, the council has been working with four GP surgeries to pilot the scheme but the new money will allow it to be expanded across the town.

Coun Brian Mattock (Con, Old Town), the cabinet member for health and adult social care, said: “We are obviously delighted to have been given this money. The whole aim of the Transformation Award is to ease the pressure on frontline services which is what Community Navigators is all about.

“At an early stage, a GP will identify a vulnerable patient who is potentially at risk of having to repeatedly go to hospital for whatever reason. They then flag this up and we can then intervene to try and prevent this happening.

“Each time a patient visits hospital it puts further pressure on already stretched resources so we can hopefully now cut this down.”

In total almost £90m has been shared out across 71 local authorities. It is hoped that the awards will help to bring around £900m of savings to the NHS.

As well as the Community Navigator scheme, some of the money will also be used to develop Swindon Circles, a volunteer run programme which sees people befriending the elderly who may be isolated to stop loneliness.

Anyone who has even a small amount of time to give can put themselves forward as a volunteer, whether it be for 15 minutes or several days.

Jobs could include helping the person with their shopping or simply having a chat with them.

To find out more about volunteering contact Paula Harrison on 01793 466418 or email swindoncircles@ swindon.gov.uk.