Information for commissioners and development partners

Increasingly, service commissioners find themselves having to responding to new opportunities and pressures. Mobile Repair Service brings a unique and wide-ranging experience to meeting the needs of vulnerable people, working with them to improve their quality of life, and find technical solutions to enable them to live at home.

if you have any queries or are interested in developing a partnership with us then you can mail us, our email address is director@mobilerepairservice.org.uk

1. Flexibility and adaptability

   Mobile currently works in five London boroughs and is expanding into a sixth. Services available range from the straightforward (like fitting smoke alarms) to the complex (like servicing washing machines and gas fitting). Because of its broad pool of technical expertise and experience in recruiting and retaining skilled engineers and handy-persons Mobile can respond quickly to commissions. In Kilburn, for example, we’ve recently started to work under the Sure Start programme in households with children under 4 after the success of our work on home safety with older people in the same area.

2. Quality and value for money

   Our engineers are highly experienced and trained to a good standard. Mobile is unique in the voluntary sector in employing staff who are Corgi-registered, able to undertake full-scale plumbing jobs, or to carry out electrical installations. At the same time we have for five years fitted most small aids, including internal and external rails and lever taps, for the occupational therapy service in Islington working to the requirements of the National Performance indicators. And we’re prepared to fund-raise to help you! In Camden, for example, since 1999, Mobile has subsidised a service for disabled people, carrying out 360 jobs at an estimated value of £28,800 to our service-users.

3. Person-centred services

   Mobile established itself through its capacity to respond sensitively to distressed and isolated people in real difficulties with technical problems in their own homes. Engineers built our reputation by taking the time both to reassure and explain and to listen and solve problems. Care managers and advocacy services in particular welcome our capacity to respond to complex situations and come up with holistic solutions. We retain that commitment to meeting our older and disabled service-users needs as they define them wherever we can attract the funding to do so.

4. Working in partnership

   With our capacity to provide technical expertise in appliance repair, our skills at safety audit, and the wide range of user groups we are able to serve, Mobile has proved able to work with others to expand the scope of local partnerships. Examples have been the Warm Homes partnership in Hackney and our ongoing work with Age Concern and Metropolitan Housing Trust in Haringey.

5. The capacity to innovate and develop

   Mobile was first in the field and has a significant track record of innovation, in the employment of women technicians, for example, and in developing innovative methods of promotion and delivering home safety audits. We’re currently negotiating with a number of partners to build on the experience of service providers in Liverpool and South London to develop a North London wheelchair repair service.