Volunteering should be making a difference in the coming 10 years – and right now
21st January 2025
Amerjit Chohan became our Chief Executive on 6 January. In this blog he looks ahead to the opportunity to significantly boost the role of volunteering in the NHS 10-Year Health Plan– but we mustn’t also overlook how volunteers could be doing much more now!
An important but challenging moment for health and care
This is an exciting time to join Helpforce. While health and care services face significant challenges, this moment also presents incredible opportunities for change. Encouragingly, there is growing recognition of the vital role that volunteering plays in addressing these issues. As proof of this, ahead of my start as Chief Executive in January, I was very pleased to join the impressive gathering at the Helpforce House of Commons reception in November. The event radiated optimism and confidence, showcasing compelling evidence and practical examples of the transformative impact volunteers can have in our national health service.
Amerjit and guests at the Helpforce House of Commons reception in November
Our guests were eager to support our call to action that volunteering should be fully recognised in the NHS Ten-Year Health Plan. However, there was also a clear understanding that we cannot afford to simply wait for the plan to be published and implemented. It’s impossible to ignore the unprecedented pressures our NHS partners are currently facing. Unfortunately, the urgent need to address the crises often slows or halts progress on long-term, strategic solutions. At Helpforce, even when we have well-advanced plans to establish volunteering services that could significantly reduce issues like missed appointments, our partners often struggle to allocate the resources needed to deliver these projects.
But it doesn’t have to be like that. Even when resources are limited, with the right senior commitment, it’s possible to introduce volunteering services that can start relieving pressure on staff and supporting patients quickly.
One of our outstanding Programme Managers shared with me today that a senior clinical sponsor at one of our partner organisations made it clear: winter pressures are here now. Waiting months for a project to develop and launch simply wasn’t an option. Thanks to their committed support and the introduction of a proven, effective service, the Trust has successfully accelerated the project’s timeline. In just a few weeks, volunteers will be in place, easing the burden on staff at critical pressure points.
Helpforce offers a range of proven volunteering roles designed to support people at every stage—while they wait for treatment, during their hospital stay, and once they’re back home. We recognise the challenges of funding being tight, but these roles, along with countless other examples of impactful volunteering, are ready to be scaled up now. With commitment and targeted investment from ICBs and local authorities in the voluntary sector and volunteering, these solutions could start delivering immediate and meaningful change.
And there will be a new 10-Year Plan
We would love to see some action being taken now, rather than waiting for the 10-Year Health Plan. But, of course, the plan is an incredibly important opportunity to embed volunteering in the medium and long-term fixes across healthcare in our communities and hospitals.
We’re grasping that opportunity and are busy finalising our proposals for the plan, building on our calls to action in the report launched at our November reception: Unlocking the power of volunteering to support our NHS. In particular, we want to show how volunteering could support the three agreed ‘shifts’ to improve health and care services in England.
- Moving more care from hospitals to communities: Volunteers are the community, and we’ve great evidence of the difference their support can make to people’s health and confidence in managing their health, and while people wait for or recover from treatment.
- Moving from analogue to digital: As well as ensuring volunteering services are boosted by AI, such as Deep Medical’s tool to manage waiting lists more effectively, we believe that volunteers could be helping to support patients to use and build their confidence in technology.
- Preventing sickness, not just treating it: Our evidence shows that volunteering services can help people stay well. And volunteers can act as community champions, a bridge between people and the right preventive or treatment services.
We’ll be sharing our proposals as they’re developed. I’d love to hear your response and ideas about how you think volunteering could be making a difference in the longer term – and right now.
Look out for our posts on LinkedIn or contact me directly. And I look forward to meeting many more of you in person in the coming months.