Can volunteers help solve NHS workforce shortages?

30th June 2022

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Maeve Hully Director of Volunteering

Volunteers have always played a significant role in health care provision. From supporting patients in hospital to befriending people in their own homes volunteers have added value to patients and staff alike.

Since the start of the pandemic, volunteers have mobilised across the UK to provide vital complementary support to hard-working professional staff. Around 71,000 people took paid roles and thousands more volunteered to help with the UK’s Covid vaccination programme. 11,000 people who volunteered to administer jabs have since decided to take up full-time jobs within the NHS – demonstrating the value of these opportunities.

As the NHS continues to face workforce challenges, could volunteers provide a solution to this escalating issue of recruiting and retaining staff. There are currently over 100 000 staff vacancies across the NHS, one in 8 of these vacancies is in Nursing.

There are numerous initiatives to incentivise people to work in health and care including recruitment of overseas staff and bursary-supported university places. FIlling these vacancies is more important than ever as waiting times for care soar and peoples health continues to deteriorate as they wait for care.

Helpforce, a not for profit organisation focussed on escalating the impact and growth of volunteering, has developed a programme called Volunteer to Career (VtC) which enables organisations to fast track volunteers into healthcare careers.

VtC identifies a pathway for individual volunteers to inform, equip and direct them to NHS careers through focussed support from workforce and clinical leads in the organisation they volunteer for.

We have supported a number of VtC projects funded by Burdett Nursing Trust in partnership with five NHS Trusts. The projects took place in various settings from baby clinics to mental health units and each had an agreed outcome of supporting volunteers into health care careers.

Evaluation of the twelve month programme is ongoing. Early results suggest not only are volunteers motivated to a long term career (70% of volunteers would think about a career in healthcare), but also that staff viewed volunteers in a different way when considering them as future colleagues.

New funding to expand VtC

With additional funding from Health Education England (HEE) announced in June 2022, Helpforce is expanding the programme to more than 20 Trusts and community providers. The support of HEE endorses the importance and potential of this programme.The dual benefits, supporting stretched NHS services, whilst encouraging more people to consider careers in health demonstrates the contribution of volunteering at this critical stage in the long term provision of healthcare.

Over the next couple of years the aim is to expand the programme further so the full potential of volunteers as a creative solution to the healthcare workforce crises can be realised.

VtC conference

Helpforce is planning a conference on the 19th October 2022 where Human Resources Directors from across the UK will celebrate the success of the VtC programme and support a nationwide rollout. Ensuring that Volunteers are a significant part of all healthcare organisation workforce planning strategies is a key ambition of the conference.

Bid for a VtC programme in your organisation

HEE is currently inviting NHS Trusts to bid for delivery of the Volunteer to Career Programme. The purpose of this Invitation to Tender is to expand the impact of the VtC programme by investing in a further ten NHS Trust sites to support senior clinicians to work with volunteer service teams to design roles to support local recruitment needs. Each project site will get £25,000 to support the programme.

The intention is to increase the scale, reach and impact of the programme, as well as identify further VtC routes to support both local workforce needs and opportunities for volunteers to consider a career in healthcare.

Details on how to apply are on the Health Family Portal. Should you have any difficulties registering on the portal please contact the Atamis Support Team by Phone: 0800 9956035 or E-mail: support-health@atamis.co.uk.

The deadline for applications is midday, 14 July 2022.