St John Ambulance has a well established history of providing services to the community. This article describes the organisation’s first venture in meeting the needs of homeless people, focusing on the implications for qualified nurses.

ST JOHN AMBULANCE is best known for providing first aid services. However, the organ-isation also has a long history of caring and supporting vulnerable members of society through the work of volunteers, as an expression of good neighbourliness rather than a formal part of the St John Ambulance role. The NHS and Community Care Act (DoH 1993), which introduced protected funding for the development of services, particularly in the independent sector, provided an opportunity for St John Ambulance to develop such caring and supportive dimensions of its work, without affecting its major role in first aid. The organisation devised a strategy for working with local communities, under the slogan ‘local people meeting local needs’. The result has been a flexible approach to service provision that is characteristic of charitable organisations (Gerrard 1983). The strategy incorporates a diverse range of local needs that include day centres for people with physical disabilities, weekend respite for older adults with dementia and healthy lifestyle weekend events for disadvantaged young adults.