Working with ICSs to help 200,000 people

Building on our existing pioneering work with Integrated Care Systems (ICSs), this Lottery-funded programme will improve thousands of people’s health and care across the NHS and in local communities.

Thanks to generous funding from The National Lottery Community Fund, Helpforce is developing major volunteering projects with six ICSs in our ICS Back to Health programme.

Working with ICSs around a particular area or ‘place’, over the next three years the programme will demonstrate how support from volunteers can improve people’s health and care. Key to achieving this will be improving the integration of the voluntary, community and social enterprise (VCSE) sector with their NHS partners.

A core goal is to spread good practice to other areas and we will share what we learn in our newsletter and on this page as the programme develops.

Over three years we will work with our ICS partners to set up volunteering services to:

Call 40,000 people

before or after hospital treatment, making sure they don’t miss their appointments and checking if they need any support to help their recovery

Refer 30,000 people

for the support they need from local community services

Help 10,000

medically fit people get home from hospital faster

We’re already piloting work with ICSs and the Lottery funding will allow us to scale up this work over the next three years.

The pilot programme: Five ICBs (integrated care boards, the organisations responsible for planning health services for the population across each integrated care system area) and a provider collaborative have been working with us for nearly a year, trialling and evaluating new volunteering services that have the potential to be rolled out more widely. With a combined population of 7.5 million they are: Surrey, Sussex, North West London, Coventry and Warwickshire, Norfolk and Waveney, and the North East and North Cumbria.

As ICBs confirm their participation in the programme, we will add details here. We're thrilled that North East and North Cumbria ICB has already joined the programme.

We're already testing out how volunteers can add value to the work of health and care staff, as well as having a rewarding experience themselves. This funding makes it possible to use what we have learned and focus on areas where volunteers can make the biggest impact.

Samantha Allen, Chief Executive at NHS North East and North Cumbria Integrated Care Board