Welcoming a new baby into the world is a precious, incredibly personal time for families, and with so many of the home-based essentials such as sterilising kits and bottle warmers relying on electricity, SSEN is keen to raise awareness of the support it can offer on the rare occasions there is an interruption to power supplies.
Shona Horn is SSEN’s Customer Relationship Manager and was delighted to be asked along to meet with the group, as young families are a key audience in the company’s drive to raise awareness of the support that is on offer. She said:
“In the days and weeks after you give birth there’s so much happening, and so many things to think about, so when I’m delivering talks like the one I gave here today, I’m really keen to stress how simple it is to sign up to the PSR, and how important it is to take just a few minutes to make a list of key things to remember if ever the power was to go off, or if there was any other emergency situation.
“The level of interest from the new mums today was fantastic. I was asked a really wide range of questions, not just about the PSR and Home Emergency Plan but also about how our network works, how we get the power back on in a storm – the kind of things that we do day in, day out but which are really interesting to our wider customer base. But it wasn’t all one-way traffic – I also learned something new today, as one of the mums showed me a bottle steriliser that doesn’t need electricity – a simple, innovative and really helpful addition to the new parents’ tool kit, and something I’m sharing with my colleagues in the PSR team to make sure they pass it on when speaking with new parents.”
The Priority Services Register is free to sign up to, and can offer help to eligible customers not just at times when the power is off, but also ahead of any essential planned work on the local network or storms which can lead to power cuts. Alongside the PSR is the Home Emergency Plan, which is designed to encourage customers to increase their own resilience, so that they are more prepared and able to cope in the initial stages of an emergency or prolonged interruption to electricity supplies.
Starkeeper Morton, who organises the weekly New Mum Wellbeing Group, explains more about the invitation for Shona to come along and share the vital information:
“Our group is a great way for new mums to meet with other new mums, to get together in a relaxed and friendly setting to share ideas, discuss concerns, ask each other questions and generally bond with each other at such an exciting time of their lives.
“I’d encourage any new families reading this to consider signing up to the PSR - there’s so much going on in the weeks and months after you give birth, knowing that SSEN is there to offer an extra layer of support and help should the power go off can hopefully help to take away some of the worries that we all feel when we’re looking after our babies.”
To learn more about our Priority Services Register click here and details of our Home Emergency Plan are available here.