Our Back to Health campaign
Our Back to Health campaign starts with a simple idea but holds an ambitious goal - to help a million people across the UK to wait well, get well, recover well, and live well, through the support of volunteers.
To achieve this, we are asking health and care organisations to create high-impact volunteering opportunities at scale that can help one million people to get more support in the hospital, community and at home.
Through our Back to Health campaign, we have so far supported
132,909
patients and service users
57,425
Staff
31,706
Volunteers
Why Back to Health?
The Covid-19 pandemic shone a spotlight on the power and potential of volunteers in health and care organisations. Millions provided incredible support to people shielding and to help with the national vaccination rollout.
Although we’ve made it through the worst of the pandemic, we now face another crisis. Health and care staff and services are being stretched to breaking point, with increasing demand and significant workforce shortages.
There are huge backlogs for routine NHS operations, with a waiting list estimated at 7 million people (as of December 2022).
The Back to Health campaign is here to ensure volunteers become a key part of the solution, helping the country recover faster and stronger.
How volunteers can help
Alongside brilliant professional staff, volunteers help to make care more effective – or even reduce the need for treatment in the first place:
Waiting Well:
- Providing reassurance and practical support for patients on the waiting list
Getting well:
- Helping vulnerable patients to eat and drink
- Providing companionship to patients
- Encouraging patients to move about to improve their mobility
Recovering well:
- Supporting patients with prescribed physiotherapy exercises to prevent falls and reduce readmission
Living well:
- Providing further support post discharge, including signposting patients to local community services
Three ways to get involved
- Design, adopt or adapt high impact volunteering roles
- Measure the differences that your volunteering are making to your organisation through our Insight & Impact Service
- Learn and share best practice in volunteering across health and care through the Helpforce Network
Stay tuned
Sign up to our monthly Back to Health Newsletter to stay up to date with the campaign’s progress and learn about new volunteering projects across the country
"Through this campaign, we want to start a national conversation to raise awareness of the huge impact of volunteering on our health and care system and to encourage more organisations to look at volunteers as an integral part of their health and care pathway."
Mark Lever
Helpforce CEO