A group of Edinburgh based ‘social innovators’ are looking for local carers to help them with early tests of a new online service.

The service, dubbed “Here’s a Hand” aims to make it easier for people, or their carers, to ask a trusted group of people for help with simple tasks.

Developed by a group of people who first met at the Edinburgh Social Innovation Camp in June, the idea has now been developed to a stage where early testers are needed to help refine the project further.

James Baster, one of the programmers involved in the project said: “The idea is that it is a messaging system for groups of carers. A lot of people who are housebound or need carer help, have friends and family who offer to help, but it can be very hard to coordinate that help.

“Maybe you have to phone around everyone, and everytime someone says no, it can knock you back, and it weakens the link between you. So this system is designed to make it easier to get your friends and family around you to help you out with little tasks.”

The service allows trusted people who would be interested in helping to be added to a group. The person who needs help will be able to ask for help from the group by sending just one message. They will also be able to choose to send a request to specific people in the group if they need help with something more personal.

Meanwhile, helpers will be able to specify when then specify when they can help, the types of task they can help with, and how they want to receive messages.

Mr Baster added: “We’re trying to make it easier for someone to offer help without feeling guilty or overloaded with too many requests. In the system you can choose how you get messages, but you can also choose your schedule.

“So for example, you could say between 9am and 5pm you can’t go shopping for someone because you’re at work – but you can make a quick phonecall for someone for a couple of minutes or provide advice. So it’s up to you how much you offer, and what you offer to do.”

The group behind the service hope that eventually it could make it easier for everyone involved to get more support from the people around them. Once they have the service working with a small group of people it is anticipated that it may be of use to council, NHS and charity workers who provide care services too.

Mr Baster said: “We think that a service like this could help to stop situations becoming so serious that council services have to come in. It’s a preventative measure and the council are interested in this because it could help to make people less reliant on council services.”

“We don’t think this will replace council services. There will always be things that the council needs to do, but hopefully it can just make it easier for friends and family to look after someone.

“We’re looking for groups around Edinburgh who want to try the service out free of charge, and give us feedback on how they found it.

“Any situation where there is an informal group of family or friends helping to look after someone can take part. Part of the idea of the service is to help people strengthen those informal bonds that you may have with your neighbours, family or friends.”

You can find the Here’s a Hand website here.