What 'Volunteering in Health' means
The main goal of the Volunteering in Health initiative was to strengthen the valuable role that volunteers play in the NHS. Volunteers have always played a major role in helping people through traumatic periods of illness and injury. They work alongside healthcare professionals to vastly improve the experience of people using health services. The achievements of Volunteering in Health will help ensure that the next generation of volunteers are able to carry on this important work and that volunteers reflect the diversity of the world we live in.

Putting into practice
The Volunteering in Health initiative provided vital support to volunteer managers in hospitals in six key sites in South London. The initiative’s Volunteer Development Manager specifically worked to increase the diversity of volunteers in the six areas.

Volunteering In Health is also held six one-day workshops to Volunteer Managers and NHS Executive Board members on supporting and recruiting volunteers from a diverse range of backgrounds.

They explored how to manage the feelings and attitudes of existing volunteers, and the potential risks incurred with an influx of new volunteers with potentially different needs.

The training extended beyond the six target areas to groups from the rest of South London were invited to participate.

Volunteering in Health distributed £75,000 in small grants to support independent voluntary organisations in hospitals, to help diversify their current volunteering base. Priority for the grants was South London, where the support work is ongoing but also included London, North West, North East and York and Humberside.

A stronger community
Time for Health hopes to be able to expand Volunteering in Health, which could include services ranging from supplying organisations with a recognised accreditation programme to providing groups with a team of specialised support staff that would aid organisations in the development and execution of innovative ideas aimed at attracting new volunteers.

The Volunteering in Health initiative aims to benefit the NHS community by helping those volunteer organisations diversify their volunteer base. The more people who donate their time to the health and social service fields, the better the services are for those who need it most.

Funders
Volunteering in Health was jointly funded by the Office of the Third Sector in the Cabinet Office (£200,000) and the Care Services Improvement Partnership (£65,000). The project is part of the Government’s larger Volunteering for All programme, which aims to tackle barriers to volunteering and increase numbers of volunteers from social excluded groups.

Photo by Sharon Shahani www.pickindaisies.org