Celebrating the achievements of UK volunteering in health and care

22nd September 2021

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Helpforce, along with The National Lottery Community Fund and volunteering organisations in Scotland, Northern Ireland, and Wales, have come together today to celebrate the differences that volunteering services across the UK have made to people’s health and well being.

The virtual ceremony, hosted by Helpforce, was attended by representatives from The National Lottery Community Fund, the largest funder of community activity in the UK, Volunteering in NHS Scotland, Volunteer Now in Northern Ireland, and Wales Council for Voluntary Action (WVCA). The event showcased a number of initiatives that had been carried out since 2018 to improve volunteering services in health and care, such as developing a new framework to integrate volunteering into the health and care sector, helping volunteers to get on board more quickly, and giving them more opportunities to provide better care to patients and healthcare staff.

This three-year-work was made possible thanks to National Lottery players, with funding from The National Lottery Community Fund that was used to deliver a number of workstreams to improve volunteering services in respective countries.

Maeve Hully, Director of Volunteering at Helpforce, said: “With the support of The National Lottery Community Fund, we are so proud to be leading this UK wide programme with our partners, Volunteering in NHS Scotland, Volunteer Now, and WVCA, to create a systematic change in volunteering services in health and care.

“Throughout the past three years, we are delighted to see a significant change in the way that volunteers have been mobilised in Scotland, Northern Ireland, and Wales.

“For example, in Scotland, 23 new and innovative volunteering roles have been rolled out and the lessons have been shared across the country to encourage further adoption of these roles. Helpforce worked with Healthcare Improvement Scotland and Volunteer Managers from across NHS Scotland to develop an online application form to cut down the recruitment time significantly, helping volunteers to get on board more quickly. Most importantly, the team focused on encouraging NHS organisations in Scotland to embed evaluation in their volunteering programmes, helping volunteering service managers to understand the values of collecting evidence to improve the service as well as to make a business case.

“When working with our partner Volunteer Now in Northern Ireland, we focused on establishing a tight network of health organisations, through the support of the Volunteering in Health Forum. This network acted as a platform that allowed volunteering leaders to connect and share ideas and best practices in volunteer management. Thanks to this work, organisations were able to address blockages in volunteer recruitment and identified new ways of working to overcome the problems. In addition, we were able to redevelop existing volunteer roles and develop new ones.

“And last but not least, our work with WVCA has resulted in the publication of a number of important tools to help organisations integrate volunteering into their operation, such as: the Charter for Volunteering and Workplace relationships that addressed the concerns about job displacement and undermining of professional standards, Framework for Volunteering in Health and Social care, which provides tools and suggestions to help organisations maximise the potential of volunteering, and we worked with a number of organisations to support the Volunteer Standards. In addition, we worked closely with the Welsh Government and other partners to develop three end-of-life care volunteer projects, aiming to maximise the potential impact of volunteering to support health and social care services in Wales, in line with the Welsh Government’s long-term plan for health and social care: A Healthier Wales.”

ENDs.

Media contact:

Vy Tran, Communications and Content Manager: vt@helpforce.community

Notes:

*Based on 1st April 2020 to 31st March 2021.

About The National Lottery Community Fund

We are the largest funder of community activity in the UK – we’re proud to award money raised by National Lottery players to communities across England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. National Lottery players raise £36 million each week for good causes throughout the UK. Since The National Lottery began in 1994, £43 billion has been raised for good causes which has supported over 635,000 projects, benefiting millions of people - that’s 255 projects per postcode area.

We are passionate about funding great ideas that matter to communities and make a difference to people’s lives. At the heart of everything we do is the belief that when people are in the lead, communities thrive. Thanks to the support of National Lottery players, our funding is open to everyone. We’re privileged to be able to work with the smallest of local groups right up to UK-wide charities, enabling people and communities to bring their ambitions to life.

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