We help organisations establish volunteer services to reduce operational pressures

We know the volunteer services we help create make a real difference:

• 85% of staff agreed that volunteers helped them to feel less stressed
• 25% more patients had support to help them eat meals
• 44 minutes - The amount of time volunteer support speeded up patient discharge
• 62% of people on Helpforce's Volunteer to Career programmes went on to secure employment or further education/training in health and care

We also help you build a business case for your voluntary services and have helped health and care partners raise £1.83 million for new and innovative volunteer roles.

Our proven approach helps you to turn things around quickly

Helpforce’s Adapt and Adopt service has worked with over 50 health and care organisations across the UK, with many coming back to us for further support with new projects.

Overall, we've worked on more than 100 volunteering services. This unique experience and expertise have allowed us to develop tried and tested volunteering models that you can deploy quickly and with confidence.

Our volunteer service development course

Through our Adapt and Adopt service, we run specialist courses that provide health and care organisations with extensive learning and support to roll out impactful volunteering models.

We have identified five proven volunteering service models. Our course will take you step-by-step through setting up the service you want to introduce in your organisation.

1. New service model: Falls prevention

Trained volunteers help people with physio-prescribed exercises in their homes or other community settings. This improves patient health and wellbeing and can prevent them from being readmitted to hospital.

Key outcome: 63% of patients took on additional activities

2. Emergency department volunteers

Emergency department volunteers reduce pressure on staff, providing reassurance to patients at a stressful time.

Key outcome: 85% of staff agreed that volunteers helped them to feel less stressed

5. Volunteer-led contact centre

Trained volunteers make calls to patients on waiting lists, signposting them to community support and reducing DNAs (did not attend), helping patients feel less anxious and reducing pressure on appointment systems.

Key outcome: patients feel less anxious and their confidence in the hospital is increased.

3. Mealtime support volunteers

Staff and patient wellbeing improves as volunteers provide companionship and support at mealtimes.

Key outcome: 25% more patients had support to help them eat meals

4. Response volunteers, with a focus on discharge

Health care organisations benefit from flexible volunteers, trained to provide responsive non-clinical support.

Key outcome: 44 minutes - The amount of time volunteer support speeded up patient discharge

The key elements of the course

We provide a mix of tools and training to help your volunteer service grow in the way you need it too. The support you get includes:

• Making the case to get buy-in for your service
• Online learning, covering project and stakeholder management, as well as the specific skills you'll need to establish your preferred volunteering model
• Facilitated peer-group sessions to share your learning
• One-to-one support from the experienced Helpforce team
• Access to a large peer-to-peer network and wide range of resources
• Learning how to measure the impact of your service