Helpforce wins top UK health award

Helpforce has scooped one of this year’s GSK IMPACT Awards, a sought-after accolade for healthcare charities in the UK.

Helpforce won the award for our work supporting NHS and community organisations to harness the untapped potential of volunteering to improve people’s health and wellbeing.

The Award judges were especially impressed by the way the charity has supported large scale volunteering initiatives to help people ‘wait well’ for their treatment and surgery, by making sure they have information and practical support like rides to appointments; ‘recover well’ to assist people in staying healthy to avoid readmission to hospital; and ‘live well’ to prevent ill health in the future.

Following a rigorous selection and assessment process, Helpforce was chosen from a record number of award entries, as one of the 10 winners of the 2025 GSK IMPACT Awards.

Lisa Weaks, Senior Associate at The King’s Fund, said: “Helpforce is a unique and strategic organisation that is doing excellent work to help the NHS and other health and care partners grow and nurture their own volunteering programmes and increase the influence these have within their organisation. At a time when the NHS is severely stretched and tackling chronic workforce shortages, the charity’s tailored and innovative work plays a pivotal role in the delivery of patient care across the country. By not just setting up volunteering schemes, but ensuring health and care organisations have the skills and capacity they need to sustain them, they have a lasting impact on each organisation they work with.”

Commenting on the award, CEO of Helpforce, Amerjit Chohan, said: “We are thrilled to receive the prestigious GSK Impact Award. It is a ringing endorsement of the impact we are having in driving forward high-quality, innovative and robust volunteering programmes that are transforming the health and wellbeing of people at scale. Not only do our initiatives provide enormous benefit to patients, but they also play a crucial role in alleviating pressure on the squeezed healthcare workforce – boosting morale among doctors, nurses and support staff.

“We accept the award on behalf of all the healthcare organisations that have demonstrated vision and belief in partnering with us, as well as the many thousands of extraordinary volunteers who have donated their time and skills.”

Since 2023, Helpforce has supported 49 NHS partner organisations to secure additional funding, raising £3.5 million to invest in their volunteering programmes.

And through its three-year ‘Back to Health’ campaign – launched in 2022 - the charity has engaged with 100 healthcare partners to establish dynamic volunteering services that collectively expect to support one million people with their wellbeing. Helpforce’s evaluations of volunteer programmes show that 82% of patients agreed volunteer support reduced their anxiety, 87% of healthcare staff agreed that volunteers improve the quality of service they can provide, and 90% of volunteers said volunteering gave them a sense of purpose.

Whilst the financial context in which charities operate is increasingly challenging, the award judges were impressed by Helpforce’s innovative interventions to support NHS partners in designing volunteering schemes.

The award judges highlighted the success of the charity’s ‘Volunteer to Career’ programme, which was developed in response to workforce shortages in healthcare and offers career exploration opportunities to people while they are volunteering. Nearly three-quarters of participants from the most recent 28 organisations participating in the programme went on to secure employment or further education, while hospitals were able to benefit from new and diverse volunteers with local knowledge. Helpforce has recently developed a version of the Volunteer to Career programme for veterans and their spouses and is piloting a programme for refugees and asylum seekers.

As an award winner, Helpforce will now receive £40,000 in unrestricted funding as well as a place on a highly sought-after leadership development programme provided by The King’s Fund.

/ENDS    

Notes:

Photos, interviews and case studies are available upon request. For further information please contact Vy Tran, Communications Manager at Helpforce, at vt@helpforce.community

 

GSK IMPACT Awards  

  The GSK IMPACT Awards, run in partnership with The King’s Fund, are designed to recognise the outstanding work of community-based health care charities. For more information visit https://www.gsk.com/en-gb/responsibility/charitable-investments/#UKInvestments     

• The awards are open to small and medium-sized charities working in health and wellbeing with an annual income between £150,000 and £3 million that are at least three years old. The 2026 GSK IMPACT Awards will open for applications on 1 July 2025. For more information and to apply visit www.kingsfund.org.uk/gskimpactawards.   
     

• This year £430,000 in unrestricted prize money will be awarded to UK charities through the GSK IMPACT Awards. Five runners up will receive £4,000 each. Ten winners will each receive £40,000 in unrestricted funding, film assets, a set of promotional photographs of their services, as well as access to training and development activities estimated to be worth £13,500. At the award ceremony at The King’s Fund in London on 15 May 2025, an overall winner will be announced, and they will receive an extra £10,000, making a total of £50,000. The ten winning charities are also invited to join the GSK IMPACT Awards Network, a UK-wide network of 130 previous award winners who work together to develop leaders, find new ways of working and provide mutual support.    
     

• The 2025 winners went through a rigorous assessment, including a half-day in-depth discussion with an independent assessor, and were selected by a judging panel of health and charity experts.
     

• Since its inception in 1997, over 560 health and wellbeing charities have received a GSK IMPACT Award and funding totalling more than £8.9 million.    

GSK is a global biopharma company with a purpose to unite science, technology, and talent to get ahead of disease together. Find out more at gsk.com   

The King’s Fund is an independent charity working to improve health and care in England. It helps to shape policy and practice through research and analysis; developing individuals, teams, and organisations; promoting understanding of the health and social care system; and bringing people together to learn, share knowledge and debate. Its vision is that the best possible health and care is available to all. For further information visit www.kingsfund.org.uk