Cambridgeshire mum backs ‘Volunteer To Career’ scheme – aiding stretched NHS workforce

A former librarian from Taiwan who craved a career in healthcare after moving from to the UK is backing a scheme that has helped change her life – and could be key to easing NHS workforce pressures.

Hui-Ping Chen didn’t think that landing a health service role was a realistic prospect after she’d spent 10 years away from employment to focus on raising her child. She lacked confidence and feared that not having a background in health might rule her out.

But thanks to a unique ‘Volunteer to Career’ programme she is now moving towards a role as an NHS data analyst – and has regained her self-belief.

The initiative, piloted by national charity Helpforce, is designed to harness the power of volunteering in tackling persistent recruitment issues across health services.

It gives people who are interested in healthcare careers but don’t have a background in the field a chance to gain valuable experience and build confidence before applying for paid roles or training.

To date, 48 different NHS organisations across England, including Cambridgeshire and Peterborough NHS Foundation Trust, have taken part in Volunteer to Career – enabling individuals from all walks of life to secure permanent jobs including healthcare assistants, mental health support workers and assistant physiotherapists.

Alongside Hui-Ping, those who’ve moved into the sector include former members of the armed forces community, refugees, and individuals who’ve been long-term unemployed.

Now leading health voices are calling for further investment to “supersize” Volunteer to Career, with Helpforce suggesting it has potential to cost-effectively fill around 23,600 frontline healthcare job vacancies and related study placements in England by the end of the current Parliament. As of now, around 107,000 NHS secondary care roles in England are vacanti.

The call has the backing of two influential health think-tanks - The Health Foundation and The King’s Fund - as well as NHS Providers.

Mum-of-one Hui-Ping, from Fulbourn, near Cambridge, said: “Volunteer to Career has helped me to redefine myself, build confidence and gain recognition for my efforts. I feel like a highly valued member of the NHS team.”

Hui-Ping had an established career in her native Taiwan. A psychology and library science graduate, she worked as a medical librarian, an editor and a magazine journalist before her child was born. She then took a career break when she moved to Italy, the Netherlands and the UK with her husband whose work involved frequent relocation.

Unfortunately, Hui-Ping’s marriage broke down and in 2023 she found herself looking for a job in Cambridgeshire to support herself and her child.

“I was keen to work in healthcare in a role related to my psychology background. I spotted a vacancy for an occupational therapy assistant working in a mental health ward, I decided to apply,” explained Hui-Ping.

“Unfortunately, I didn’t get the job due to my lack of experience, but the hiring manager gave me great feedback and told me about Helpforce’s Volunteer to Career scheme. It sounded like a great way to contribute to society while building up my skills, so I seized the opportunity.”

She began volunteering at Fulbourn Hospital, part of Cambridgeshire and Peterborough NHS Foundation Trust (CPFT), where her responsibilities included supporting patients with arts and crafts activities and shadowing occupational therapy staff.

Alongside her volunteering, Hui-Ping took a course in data analysis, an area that built on her existing experience in analytical thinking and information presentation developed in Taiwan.

She said: “I found myself fascinated by data, so I applied to join CPFT’s Performance and Analytics team through the Volunteer to Career programme and I’ve been doing two days a week for the past eight months. It’s an important role as it contributes to the efficient and effective running of the Trust, as well as improving patient care. My time in the occupational therapy team gave me valuable insight into the realities on the ground, which has been really useful in my analytics role – it helps me ensure our data work is relevant to frontline staff.

“I’m hoping to secure a permanent role in the team at some point, as I definitely see myself having a long-term career with the NHS – largely thanks to Volunteer to Career.

“I would definitely encourage other people interested in switching careers to healthcare to explore this innovative route into the profession.”

Helpforce Chief Executive, Amerjit Chohan, said:

“The success of the Volunteer to Career programme to date has been significant. Together with our partners in NHS Trusts and other organisations, we’ve helped people like Hui-Ping to gain valuable experience before applying for paid roles.

“Through expertly designed and structured pathways, volunteers can find their niche without the immediate pressure of employment, while being upskilled and given confidence to take into job interviews.

“Since we launched the pilot initiative in 2022, hundreds of people have taken part nationally, with 55% of them successfully transitioning from volunteering roles to paid careers in healthcare or associated courses - including nursing and midwifery.

“Our analysis shows that with the right investment, there’s clear potential to supersize the opportunity, with conservative capacity for each of the 215 NHS trusts in England to support an average of 50 volunteers annually. We believe that over the next four years that could set over 23,650 people on a path to fulfilling healthcare careers that benefit not only them, but the whole of society. We urge the Government to consider Volunteer to Career expansion as part of its upcoming NHS 10-Year Health Plan, unleashing the potential of home-grown healthcare talent.”

Not only does the Volunteer to Career programme help tackle acute frontline NHS workforce issues, it also addresses the challenge of encouraging people who aren’t in jobs - either through choice or circumstance - to re-enter the workforce, with an estimated 9.3 million people aged 16-64 in the UK deemed economically inactive.

It also supports a key objective of the NHS Long-Term Workforce Plan: to train more NHS staff domestically, reducing reliance on international recruitment and agency staff - with an ambition that in 15 years’ time around 10.5% of the NHS workforce will be recruited from overseas, compared to nearly a quarter now.

Louisa Bullivant, Voluntary Services Manager at Cambridgeshire and Peterborough NHS Foundation Trust, said:

“As Hui-Ping’s story illustrates, Volunteer to Career is an effective way of opening up healthcare career opportunities to people with no prior experience in the field. We are delighted to have partnered with Helpforce on the initiative.”

Helpforce’s analysis suggests substantial additional benefits for existing NHS staff, patients and local communities:

• 82% of healthcare staff engaged in the programme nationally said volunteers improved their working lives, while 90% reported that working alongside volunteers improved the quality of service they could provide.

• Each volunteer supported an average of 190 people.

• 42% of volunteers were from ethnic minority backgrounds and 61% lived in areas ranking within the 50% most deprived – illustrating the programme’s effectiveness at drawing-in diverse talent from local communities.

Sarah Woolnough, Chief Executive of the King’s Fund, said:

At a time when the NHS is severely stretched and tackling long-standing and chronic workforce shortages, Helpforce is doing excellent, innovative work to support volunteers to explore opportunities for an NHS career. To implement Volunteer to Career on a mass scale would require strategic investment in volunteer managers across NHS Trusts, but such investment would likely be cost-effective when set against paying high fees to agencies that supply temporary staff and helping to reduce the health services’ reliance on recruiting large numbers of healthcare staff from overseas."

Dr Jennifer Dixon DBE, Chief Executive of the Health Foundation, said:

“The results from Helpforce’s far-reaching pilot are significant. Scaling-up Volunteer to Career has to be worthy of serious consideration by a government that’s eager to get people back to work, help with long-standing NHS workforce problems and boost social capital in local communities.”

Saffron Cordery, Interim Chief Executive of NHS Providers, said:

“It’s evident that a great many NHS Trusts are already reaping benefits from the Volunteer to Career programme. Addressing NHS workforce shortages requires a readiness to explore innovative solutions and bold thinking. The advantage of expanding an already proven model like this is that good practice can easily be shared to deliver results at scale.”

As well as working with NHS hospital and ambulance trusts, the Volunteer to Career pilot has involved nine hospices. Funding to date has included a £900,000 grant from NHS England and £865,000 from the Burdett Trust for Nursing.

Learn more about why volunteering should be included in the NHS 10 Year Plan.

Learn more about Volunteer to Career.

Read more stories from Volunteer to Career.

For further information, please contact:

Martin McGlown, Head of Communications at Helpforce, on 07737 722643 MM@helpforce.community; or Vy Tran, Helpforce Communications and Content Manager, on 07508 772844 vt@helpforce.community

Notes to Editors:

Helpforce is the only independent UK charity focused exclusively on establishing high impact volunteering services across the health system.

Its team of experts:

• Co-create innovative solutions with health and care organisations.

• Enable organisations to maximise the potential of volunteering to improve outcomes for people and services.

• Connect the people leading volunteers to improve quality together.

Founded in 2017, the charity works with NHS trusts, hospices, local authorities, and voluntary and community organisations – directly and indirectly supporting hundreds of thousands of people.

Helpforce was recently awarded a GSK IMPACT Award, a prestigious national health award for small and medium sized charities delivered in partnership with The King’s Fund, in recognition of programmes including Volunteer to Career.