A vital confidential helpline for people affected by Sight Loss has received lottery funding of £272,700 to allow its services to develop for people across Sefton and West Lancashire.

Sightline Vision is a unique 'out of hours' service delivering practical and emotional support to the blind and visually impaired community through a confidential freephone helpline. The helpline service is available to callers with any visual impairment, their families, friends and carers and is staffed by trained visually impaired volunteers, every evening between 6pm and 10pm.

Sightline’s telephone Helpline aims to be one of the first points of contact for people affected by Sight Loss across the region offering information and emotional and practical support and signposting to other agencies, enabling people and their families and carers to cope with the practical and emotional issues caused by sight loss.



Ebullient Sightline Manager Kevin Lonergan told QLocal: "We are delighted to receive further funding form the Reaching Communities Big Lottery funding and it secures our service for the next three years.

"We will be able to offer our support a lot sooner to help people cope with their Sight Loss. We will work together with all agencies that support people to provide the best possible service for people.

“We will also be developing a telephone befriending scheme alongside our Helpline – sight loss causes so many problems and including isolation and loneliness and the befriending scheme will aim to support many people who find things difficult to come to terms with," he added.

Sightline is now looking for staff to join its team; for further details contact him at Sightline via email kevin@sightlinevision.org.uk or telephone (01772) 753701.