After four years, Kayleigh Stockley is wrapping up the last of her cases as a community links worker in Glasgow. 

In 2024, the 29-year-old will start a new job with Children's Hearings Scotland, the body which runs the children's panel system. 

It marks the end of a period which has seen her working one-to-one during the pandemic and then a cost-of-living crisis with some of city's most vulnerable patients. 

As a community links worker, Ms Stockley is based at the Croftfoot and Gorbals surgeries run by Pinecroft Medical Practice. 

GPs at the practice can refer on patients struggling with problems ranging from debt and domestic abuse to food poverty. 

On average, she has been handling around 30-50 cases at any one time.

One of her last - a 20-year-old single mother experiencing homelessness - was resolved days before Christmas. 

Ms Stockley said: "She had been referred to me because she had moved from up north to Glasgow, but then separated from her partner.

"She didn't have anywhere in Glasgow to stay, so she would be sleeping on one of her ex's family member's couches, and then she moved into his aunt's spare bedroom with her daughter who was eight months.

"But the house had no heating, her daughter was getting ill, and she was really struggling to navigate the homeless service.

"They offered her a shared unit where she'd have her own room, but it would be shared facilities - like a kitchen - and she just wasn't comfortable going there, as a single mother with a daughter.

"She thought that was the end of her application - she didn't realise you didn't have to accept temporary accommodation. 

"When I met with her, I helped her to re-apply, highlighting the urgency of the situation.

"She was offered a permanent tenancy in a flat within six weeks of referral, so I had an telephone appointment with her on Tuesday just to confirm that she's been awarded items through the council like essential white goods.

"That was a satisfying one to end on, and you don't get many satisfying ones for housing to be honest.

"That was a good outcome."

The Herald: Kayleigh Stockley has spent the past four years working with patients in the Gorbals and Croftfoot areas of GlasgowKayleigh Stockley has spent the past four years working with patients in the Gorbals and Croftfoot areas of Glasgow (Image: Gordon Terris/Herald&Times)

Earlier in the day Ms Stockley, from Paisley, led one of her final Tuesday morning group walks around Croftfoot - an initiative launched by the GP practice in the first year of Covid. 

"It was a positive way to bring people together outdoors when all the other groups were closed or online only," said Ms Stockley.

"It's been running just over three years now. We probably average around 10 walkers a week, and a lot of them have been going since it started. 

"They're mostly elderly or they have health conditions so it's not demanding. 

"We take breaks, then we go and have tea in the local church across the road from the park when we finish.

"If I get a referral for someone who is socially isolated, I might invite them along to the group to help build their confidence.

"Often they meet people at the walking group who are from their local area, so it can be a stepping stone to doing other things or they might go for lunch together outside of the walk."

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"I started the job in 2019, so I haven't really known the job much without the pandemic, and now the cost of living crisis is requiring a lot of emergency support.

"Mental health is massive. You've got people who fall through the cracks of the statutory services, who are not quite meeting the threshold for the community mental health team.

"Bereavement comes up quite a lot, and domestic abuse, or people seeking asylum who need support because their asylum payments don't cover what they need a lot of the time. 

"Benefits and housing are a big part of what I deal with.

"Previously it might have been a case of 'let's help you to budget better, let's make sure you're on all the benefits you're entitled to, let's maximise your benefits'.

"Now, with fuel prices increasing, food prices increasing, and especially if they're not entitled to any disability benefits - if they're just on basic state benefits - it just isn't enough for people."

Tomorrow: NHS Day in the Life - Nurse: 'By the end of the nightshift, we had only one bed left in the hospital'