Tell us about places you visit
If you have been to a dentist, optician, hairdresser, podiatrist, therapist or any other personal healthcare related service – and they were understanding of your request for covid precautions, then please send us their details and a quick summary of the experience.
If you can spare 15 minutes once or twice a week
Safe Inside is a community directory, the main way we find places to add is by phoning and we have a small team who make this possible. This is the single thing that makes the most difference and means we can help more people find safe healthcare. There is a script at the bottom of this page that we have refined through experience but obviously do your own thing if you prefer. If you think you can do this please get in touch don’t do it alone – we have a great team that helps each other, a shared calling list and a supportive chat group.
If you can spare some time but can’t call
We don’t want people who are clinically vulnerable making calls and having to speak to people who refuse to care – we also need help emailing dentists – 6 emails 2 or 3 times a week is all it takes, we provide the email addresses and the email to copy and paste, we just need an army of people to spread the work out so the emails all come from a personal email account.
If you can’t spare any time but have social media reach
This is hugely valuable to us, we need all the help we can get to raise awareness, find places to list and people to help. Please set an alert on our twitter account for retweet whenever possible.
If you work with another aligned campaigning group
We are not trying to make Safe Inside a big deal, we are trying to improve access to healthcare. We will collaborate and share all our information with anyone else doing anything to promote clean air or safer healthcare, please just get in touch
If you can’t spend any time but would be happy to donate
We are very new and working out the best way to do this, but we want to raise funds that we can give to people who have had to stop work due to ME, Long Covid or other chronic illness to help us research. We won’t ever use this money to run Safe Inside, Safe Inside is privately funded, so all money raised would go to someone who needed flexible work. Watch this space for updates on this or let us know if interested.
Call script
The call is quick, we have continually evolved it as we have learnt what works and what doesn’t. Saying, “I have long covid” – doesn’t work. Asking “what covid mitigations do you still operate?” – doesn’t work. You have to stay focused on the goal – which is to find a dentist that will happily accommodate your requests. We need to park (for now) wanting to get them to understand covid. Our call script is currently as follows, this makes for a very easy, friendly call.
Hello, I hope you can help, I am helping a friend who I care for to find a [dentist/optician]. They have a health condition that means they have a weakened immune system, they are really nervous about catching covid if they go and haven’t been for years. Do you know if your dentist would be happy to wear a FFP3 mask if they asked? They would be happy to bring one along.
[usually they go and ask, assuming they say yes] Only other question, do you know if the surgeries have air purifiers running?
Notes (every single note is sad but true):. You get a better response painting a picture of this other person who needs care and support. ‘a health condition’ and ‘weakened immune system’ are very specific. Don’t say chronic, don’t talk about specific real conditions, don’t say immune compromised. Nervous and haven’t been – this is very deliberate in setting an image in their mind. Happy to wear, not willing, not prepared, those are both more aggressive. Air purifier rather than HEPA filter – they have no idea what a HEPA filter is.
This works because in the right frame of mind most people are decent deep down, but covid is triggering and gets people into a hostile mindset. So if you can get someone relaxed and access their caring side, they will go and ask in a positive way and you will find places that will help. Should we need to do any of this? Obviously not. Focus on the goal, we can get angry later.