Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic our dedicated teams have been working safely around the clock to keep the power flowing to all 3.5 million households and businesses across our licence areas in Central and Southern Scotland, Merseyside, Cheshire, North Shropshire and North & Mid-Wales.
Our colleagues quickly adapted to new ways of working and established Covid-secure working practices and processes to ensure our communities could continue to work and stay connected to family and friends. Our engineers continued essential maintenance and repair work to secure the resilience of the electricity network, as well as going the extra mile to inspect, protect and ensure resilient power supplies to critical facilities like hospitals, vaccine centres and social care facilities at the frontline of the fight against COVID-19.
We conducted comprehensive reviews of our infrastructure around 56 large NHS and private hospitals across the areas we serve to bolster their robust contingency plans and we introduced prioritisation of works to provide additional capacity to new field hospitals and vaccination storage facilities.
Our CEO Frank Mitchell said: “While the COVID-19 pandemic brought challenges unlike any we’ve seen before, I am extremely proud of how our teams have responded to this crisis.
We’ve implemented additional COVID-19 safety procedures and swiftly adapted to new ways of working to ensure that the 3.5m homes and businesses we serve, including critical health and social care facilities, can rely on a safe and resilient electricity supply through the lockdowns and beyond.
Our customers and communities are at the heart of what we do and I’m glad that we were able to help those in need through our Priority Services Register, charity partnerships and community engagement initiatives. We’re committed to continuing to support our communities through their journey to green recovery as we work to deliver a better future, quicker. “
Our focus throughout our response has been on providing additional support to those who need it the most. We adapted our support services and shared a vulnerability mapping tool with all local authorities and emergency services to provide additional support and protect our vulnerable customers.
Many of our teams volunteered to support at-risk groups within our communities by delivering essential items and food to them during lockdowns and over Christmas. Our colleagues across the business continued spreading much needed festive cheer by raising over £5,000 for Radio City’s Cash for Kids Mission Christmas appeal and donating hundreds of presents to Edinburgh-based organisation Helping Hands, to brighten up the holiday season for the individuals and families in need.
We have also provided funding to a number of charities to help them continue to support our communities during lockdown. We partnered with British Red Cross to help them provide food parcels, medicine deliveries, fuel top-ups and welfare check-ins, while our donation helped volunteers in their Glasgow hub support vulnerable adults and asylum seekers across Glasgow and Midlothian. Thanks to funding from our COVID-19 charity fund, Food Train Scotland was able to provide reliable weekly shopping delivery service and wellbeing check-in calls for those who were housebound with no family or friends for support, while the Support in Mind charity was able to offer their service users both remote and increased carer support.
During a year which has been particularly challenging for our NHS, we worked with service partners and the Wirral University Teaching Hospital to revamp the Arrowe Park hospital Garden with an outdoor seating area, so patients, staff and visitors can now enjoy some fresh air. Later in the year our teams helped install the Rainbow Flower display for the Arrowe Park Hospital’s fundraising initiative and we also helped to raise £10,000 for Nightingale House Hospice by collecting Christmas trees for recycling. We continue to support the Nightingale House Hospice through our sponsorship of their ongoing Build A Balloon Campaign, to enable them to raise funds and continue to deliver vital support and care for the patients and their families.
We’re proud to support our communities as we continue to keep the power flowing and build a cleaner, greener future.
More information on our charity donations is available here.