Update on Project Mead — our services transformation project

The MS community and our volunteer network sit at the heart of everything we do. In recent years, the community has been telling us that we need to do more to make our services accessible and make it easier for people to find out about services.

You’ve also told us that we can go further to develop resources and improve processes to help you deliver vital services and support for people affected by MS.

We want to deliver the changes that the community has been asking for. That’s why, last year, we launched Project Mead, our services transformation project.

What we heard from our Community Roadshow events

If you’ve been following our Project Mead updates in previous volunteer newsletters, you’ll probably already know about, or even have participated in, one of our ‘Community Roadshow’ events in February.

These events were a chance for us to tell you about the work we’re doing with Project Mead and find out where you think we need to make changes to better support people affected by MS.

In total, we hosted 28 listening sessions, hearing from over 260 volunteers and community members from across the UK, including four online events for people who weren’t able to join us in person.

The feedback from these sessions has been reassuring, confirming that we’re travelling in the right direction with our transformation work. But it has also thrown up challenges that we need to meet head on.

From volunteers, we heard:

• we need to do more to improve processes and systems (we’ve received clear indications on some of the specific changes that are needed)

• lots of ideas about how we could offer less restricted, more flexible volunteering opportunities

• we should offer more ways for volunteers and MS groups to connect with each other and to other service partners

• that volunteers would like staff at the MS Society to have a better understanding and knowledge of what they do, and be more involved 'on the ground'

• we need to do more to promote and signpost services, and support with referrals

• more resource is needed to support groups with their communications and digital challenges

From the community, we heard:

• we could do more on promotion, signposting and referrals, especially from the NHS

• we need to address barriers to access – from physical barriers like lack of suitable transport for people living with MS, to social barriers such as creating more inclusive virtual and in-person spaces for underrepresented communities

• our services would be more appealing if we could expand our offer and do more to develop services for specific demographics

What’s next

The feedback from the Community Roadshows is helping us to develop a new delivery model that will help make it easier for people to find support and to connect to services.

We want to make sure that no matter how people connect with us, they have access to the same information about our UK-wide services, as well as up-to-date information about local services in their area. We’ll help volunteers delivering local services with better access to support and resources. In a post-pandemic landscape, our new approach will create opportunities for volunteers and groups to feel more connected to each other again, and hopefully to the wider MS Society community too.

To help us deliver a new model, we’re going to be looking at our own internal structures to make sure we have the right resources in place to support any changes. As a result of this, we anticipate this will mean some changes to staff teams and volunteer functions as we introduce new ways of working this year.

We’ll keep you informed about any changes in future Newsletter updates and direct communications to volunteers and groups.

In the meantime, if you have questions about Project Mead, or ideas you’d like to share with us, you can email the project team at: [email protected].

We'll respond to every enquiry we receive and do our very best to answer any questions you may have.