Warp It proudly welcomes Ian Sommerville from NHS Humberside to discuss how a reuse operation can function from the perspective of a porter. This short and sweet interview will give you a quick insight into:

• How porters interact with our online reuse portal
• Time management through best procedure when it comes to surplus assets
• How one simple process change can be a victory for everyone, and the environment!
• How reuse relates to sustainable heathcare

Hey Ian, tell us a bit about your role as a porter at NHS Humberside?

Well, day-to-day I deal with incoming mail, maintenance, deliveries, general admin, and more recently I’ve been looking after people’s Warp It requests. There are two porters here, myself and another.

Do you coverage one building or an entire site?

Between the two of us we cover all of the buildings on this site.

What were you doing with redundant furniture before Warp It?

A little bit of reuse, but not as much as now. Warp It has really helped us with the technology side of things, allowing us to list items on a web page. It’s a lot better than before, people can see items online instead of having to leave their desks to do viewings in person. This has taken a lot of pressure off of us.

What was the process before?

They’d have to come to us, see what he had in the store, then we’d have to wait for their decision, arrange a delivery and then take the items over. We’ve got a much better system in place now because of Warp It. Alternatively, we used to send items blind, without the claimant viewing them, and there was an associated risk with that which lead to a few wasted trips. One issue was measurements, so sometimes the claimed furniture wouldn’t be right for the space, but now we put measurements on Warp It and this issue has gone.

Would you say that Warp It is saving you time?

Yes. Before the system was put in place we were told that it was going to take the pressure off of us, rather than adding more to our plate, which we were happy about. They installed it, got it working quickly and the system is beneficial to us. It’s saving time for the staff who claim items too, because they don’t have to visit the store to do viewings, they can just open a new window on their browser. Additionally, when a notification comes through for a claim, I make a label and put it on the item, so when people make a collection it also saves them time.

What do you like about Warp It’s reuse platform, personally?

It’s so easy to view and look at things. I also really like the email notifications, it helps us a great deal to know who has claimed the items. To any other porters who are concerned that Warp It might give them more work, it actually makes things less time consuming and it’s beneficial to the organisation because there are fewer associated waste and travel costs.

Have you managed to shift any items that you thought would never be moved?

Yes! There was this old garden bench. I honestly thought it would never go, but someone took it. Generally the claims are for common stuff, like desks and chairs and office equipment. We recently started doing books and stationery too, and we’re looking to include more items in future.

Thanks Ian!

Takeaway lessons:

• Warp It saves both the porters and the claimants a great deal of time

• Warp it is easy and quick to set up and put into action

• The system allows for easy viewing of photos and measurements to make sure items will be a good match for their new home!