A number of guests at this very popular session were fairly new to their posts and were keen to find out more.

The topics covered by this group were:

Staff engagement: ways to encourage staff to welcome and support volunteers by including staff in the onboarding process:

• Tours of the area of work and Q&A sessions with a clinical member of staff.

• Get senior leadership backing.

• Create charts and posters clearly stating what a volunteer can and can’t do.

• Identify a clinical mentor for the volunteers.

• Co-design the role descriptions with staff.

Young volunteers: Some of the group now have a very high percentage of young volunteers.

• Shadowing shifts (Buddy schemes) with experienced volunteers.

• Age limit for patient facing roles. It was felt that this should be 18+.

Reintroduction of volunteers: A few members of the group are only just starting to bring back volunteers and were really interested in exploring the idea of ED volunteers and any special training required.

• Get existing volunteers involved with your recruitment process.

• A specialist paediatric A&E unit has introduced Play Volunteers in Children's A&E and hope to expand it.

Volunteers pushing wheelchairs: Training and risk assessments were discussed and there were a few variations on how this was done.

• Moving and handling training done online before they start. On the first day the volunteer has wheelchair training and at this point the staff member checks that the volunteer has understood the online training.

• Face to face wheelchair training provided by the education department.

• A mix of the education team and some VSMs who are trained to train.

• A 1.5 hour course with dedicated manual handling trainers.

• Strict guidelines to ensure that volunteers aren’t encroaching on porter roles. The volunteer must try to ask for assistance from a porter first - if this isn’t available and a patient needs support to attend an appointment the volunteer can step in. Enhanced DBS is required for this role.

Other training / guidance

• Training in how to deal with violence and aggression.

• Trauma / volunteer health and wellbeing support.

• Signposting to other organisations i.e. The Samaritans.

• Access to the Trust’s counselling services.

• One guest has situational meetings with volunteers to encourage reflection, e.g. ‘What have you seen?’ ‘What examples have you had?’. It’s a good way for the volunteers to share their experiences and learn from each other. This trust uses a volunteer feedback sheet to capture these insights.

‘Rounding’

• One Trust is getting requests for help with nutrition and hydration. ‘Rounding’ - going around the cubicles every hour to check what is required.

ED volunteer roles could include:

• Refreshments (hydration and nutrition).

• Mealtime support

• Clean down the bed spaces in the cubicles

• Restocking supplies.

• Accompanying patients to procedures and ward transfers.

• Meet and greet at the entrances to help with wayfinding and patient flow.

• Escort patients to their appointments and to other areas around the hospital

• Offering leaflets of services in the community.

• Feedback surveys for services provided by the Trust (Friends & Family surveys)

• Communication role, sitting with patients who are waiting to be seen and providing information and reassurance

• Supporting ‘frequent flyers’ - regular attendees at ED.

It was acknowledged that a large volunteer team is needed to provide continuous cover for ED, including evening and weekend shifts.

For more ideas take a look at our Volunteer role library

This discussion took place on 11 October 2022.

For details of future network discussions please go to our events page.