Former roofer backs ‘Volunteer To Career’ scheme aiding stretched NHS workforce

A former Suffolk roofer who moved from a hospital volunteering role into a frontline healthcare career is backing a proven scheme that helped realise his dream – and could be key to easing NHS workforce pressures.

Matt Sharp never imagined he could have a key role in the ambulance service after spending much of his early career as a roofer, but thanks to the ‘Volunteer to Career’ programme he now spends his days responding to emergency calls alongside paramedics.

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 the East of England Ambulance Service NHS 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 Matt, 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.

Matt Sharp, from Laxfield, said: “If it wasn’t for Volunteer to Career, I wouldn’t be working in healthcare – I just wouldn’t have seen it as a career path that was open to me.

Having spent his early career as a roofer and then as a roofing supervisor, Matt eventually became frustrated with the lack of human contact in his job. A self-confessed ‘chatty type’ he switched to a role as a care worker with the elderly, disabled and stroke victims. He also volunteered as a Community First Responder and realised what a buzz he got from helping people.

When Matt found out about the new pilot scheme Volunteer to Career (VTC) at East of England Ambulance Service NHS Trust in 2023 he was first in line to join. It offered a pathway into the NHS with a chance to witness the work at the sharp end of emergency care.

Matt said: “VTC was a fantastic insight into work with the ambulance service. We got six ride outs with the crews as well as shifts in the control room, where you could see how they handled the calls coming in. We also got the chance to take a basic Emergency Responders qualification. VTC gets you trained by the very best people and puts you in the perfect position for getting a job.”

After a successful interview, Matt began a paid role as an Emergency Care Assistant in April 2024.

He now works full time 12-hour shifts, based at the ambulance station in Diss. His role includes going on calls with the crew, assisting the clinicians with treatment, making up drugs and doing patient assessments. On top of this he also continues with his voluntary role as a Community First Responder.

With his eye on the pinnacle of becoming a paramedic, Matt has just applied for the next step on the career ladder as an Emergency Medical Technician.

He said: “This job is the most rewarding job you could wish for. Every day someone out there is having the worst day of their life – a stroke, a heart attack, a major accident – it’s such a relief for them when you appear on the scene. Of course, there are times when it’s upsetting, but you get them to the hospital knowing you’ve done your utmost to give them the best chance of recovery. That’s what it’s all about for me.”

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 Matt 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.

Neill Moloney, chief executive of East of England Ambulance Service NHS Trust, said:

“As Matt’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.

“Ten people completed the first programme with us and, of those, five are currently employed by us – so it’s already showing its worth.

“We are continuing to support this innovative programme this year, thanks to additional funding of over £11,000 from the East of England Ambulance Service Charity.”

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

• 82% of healthcare staff engaged in the programme 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.