On Thursday mornings from eight until noon the ward keeps a table aside and two staff on it, for anybody who wants help with a form.
What people bring: pension and allowance applications, a utility account being put into a new name after a death, a hospital reimbursement, a school application, a housing application, a bank form, and every year a number of forms nobody at the desk has seen before.
What happens: somebody sits down with you and fills it in, reads back what has been written, photocopies what needs copying at no charge, and tells you where it goes and what to keep. If the ward cannot help with that particular form it will say so and telephone the office that can, while you are there.
This service was started for older residents and is used by everybody, which the ward is content with. No appointment, no charge, no queue number.
Two things it is not. It is not advice about what to claim or how a decision will go, and the staff will not guess at that. And nothing brought to this table is kept: the ward photocopies and hands everything back, because a document left at a desk is a document lost.