Our Work
Free health information sessions, workplace outreach, and wellbeing support across Fort William and Lochaber.
Free health information sessions, workplace outreach, and wellbeing support across Fort William and Lochaber.
On a practical level, Helix means a trained health advocate sitting across a table from a twenty-four-year-old mountain guide who has been managing a recurring knee issue through ibuprofen all season and hasn’t mentioned it to anyone. It means a hostel worker getting clear information about the morning-after pill and where to access it locally without a prescription delay. It means a head chef who has been quietly struggling with anxiety finding out — for the first time — that free talking therapy options are available to him even though he is only in Fort William until October.
It means a group of ski-season workers at the Nevis Range learning, in a thirty-minute lunchtime session, how to register as temporary NHS patients, where the nearest pharmacy with extended hours is, and what to do if a colleague has a medical incident on the hill.
Lunchtime session, Nevis Range area
This is not dramatic work. It is the steady, accumulated work of making sure people have the information they need to take care of themselves.
Beyond individual conversations, we track anonymised data on the most common health queries across each season. This intelligence feeds into our employer outreach priorities, informs our annual report to funders, and helps us advocate — at Highland Council and NHS Highland level — for systematic improvements in health service access for itinerant workers. We are not a clinical service and we never position ourselves as one; but we are a consistent, trusted, well-connected presence that helps seasonal workers navigate a health system that was not designed with them in mind.
Walk-in sessions at our High Street space, open three days a week with early morning and evening slots to fit around hospitality and guiding rosters.
Our drop-in is staffed by trained health advocates who can answer questions across a wide range of topics: prescription medications, managing a long-term condition away from home, sexual health, dental pain, respiratory symptoms, skin conditions, and mental wellbeing. Sessions are one-to-one, private, and typically run fifteen to thirty minutes. No appointment is needed and we never ask for proof of address or GP registration. Workers are welcome to return as many times as they need throughout their time in Fort William.
We visit hotels, hostels, activity centres, and guiding companies across Lochaber to bring health information directly into the workplace.
Twice monthly we run outreach sessions at partner employer sites — arriving before a morning briefing, joining a staff lunch, or staying after an evening shift changeover. Employers provide a private space; we provide the advocates and the information. These sessions reduce the barrier of workers having to find and travel to a separate service, and allow us to build trust within teams across a full season. We currently work with twenty-two businesses across Fort William, Kinlochleven, and the Nevis Range.
Practical information and peer-referral pathways for workers managing stress, anxiety, homesickness, or the specific pressures of seasonal employment.
Seasonal work is exhilarating and exhausting in equal measure: long hours, physical demands, distance from support networks, shared accommodation, and the particular anxiety of a contract with a clear end date. Our advocates are trained to have open conversations about mental health without clinical framing, providing information about self-management techniques, local talking therapy services, crisis support lines, and employer wellbeing resources. We maintain a current directory of free and low-cost mental health services accessible to people without a local GP registration.
Helping workers who manage ongoing conditions or regular medications navigate prescription access, supply, and monitoring while working away from home.
Managing a long-term condition or regular prescription while living in temporary accommodation and working irregular hours is genuinely complex. Workers arrive with medications they cannot easily reorder remotely, or conditions that need monitoring equipment they did not pack, or queries about whether their prescription is available in the same form from a Scottish pharmacy. Our advocates provide clear, accurate information about NHS prescription access, pharmacy services in Lochaber, and the specific steps for accessing repeat prescriptions through NHS Highland as a temporary resident — reducing the risk of a manageable condition becoming an emergency.
Drop-in on the High Street
Employer outreach, 2024
Planning the next season
If you work in Fort William or the wider Lochaber area and want to know what we offer, no prior contact is needed. Find us, come in, and ask what you need to ask.