Are you keeping up with the world of volunteer management in health and care?

Challenges

Scarcity of funding and resources

We know that the health service is under pressure so, inevitably, limited funding and resources affect volunteering services. Demonstrating volunteering's value and impact is even more vital in this climate to make the business case for funding and development.

Useful resources:

• How to write an impactful business case: Step-by step guide

• Successful business case example: Volunteering team at Kingston Hospital NHS Foundation Trust

• Business case toolkit - Nesta

Attracting and retaining volunteers

With increasing demands on people’s time, many organisations are finding it challenging to attract the right volunteers when they want to introduce new and innovative roles. This is compounded by the need to manage volunteers’ expectations, ensuring that the roles available are fulfilling and aligned with organisational needs.

Our survey highlighted that flexibility is an important factor in volunteer retention, but that this must be balanced with consistency in service delivery.

Useful resources:

• Understanding what ‘flexibility’ means for health and care volunteering

• Top tips on managing volunteers’ expectations

Supporting the transition from volunteering to employment

Volunteer managers are keen to support volunteers with ambitions to pursue a career in healthcare, particularly as this can also help organisations plug workforce gaps. But they don’t always have the infrastructure in place within their own organisation to do this.

Useful resources:

• How Bradford District Care NHS FT secured funding to build their Volunteer to Career programme

• Business case to help set up a Volunteer to Career programme - Example

• You can find out more about the Helpforce Volunteer to Career programme on our website

Feeling isolated

Many Network members feel isolated, with their organisation not sharing their vision of volunteering’s potential, so they struggle to gain support for their plans.

This highlights the value of a supportive community, like the Network, where ideas and experiences can be shared, with a safe space where people can ask for help from their peers.

Find out more about our online sessions and forum, where individuals can connect to explore specific subjects or ask general questions.

Opportunities – and looking forward

Members responding to the survey credited the Network with preparing them to be ambitious and innovative in 2025. Through Network webinars, discussions and online resources, they have been able to stay updated with new developments in volunteering, and accessed knowledge and peer support, all of which has helped them think outside the box.

Members said the Network had helped to open up their vision of what was possible, including considering opportunities for greater collaboration with other organisations.

Others have been inspired to develop and measure the impact of new volunteer roles. This in turn has helped to raise the profile of volunteering within their organisation.

They want to learn more about volunteer recruitment, given the reduction in formal volunteering across the population (as confirmed in, for instance, the Community Life Survey, 2023/24).

And they want to be part of the current changes within the NHS which in England is driven by the 10-Year Plan for Health. In particular, they want to be involved in the kind of collaboration between the voluntary and community sector and the NHS that will support prevention and the shift of healthcare closer to people’s homes.

As one respondent said: "I'm always being told that volunteers can't do this because.... but now I feel I can challenge that way of thinking."

Useful resources:

• Breaking boundaries

• How volunteers can help to support the NHS with its challenges, identified by Lord Darzi

• Exploring Helpforce Network’s Member Directory

• You can find out more about the Helpforce evaluation (Insight and Impact) service on our website

Conclusion

Our 2024 Network members survey has given us valuable insights into the challenges and opportunities for volunteer leaders working in health and care, that will help us continue to develop the Network. It is also encouraging to see how Network membership has helped members to identify opportunities to maximise the impact of their volunteering service.

We are grateful to Network members for taking the time to share their views and we look forward to working together in the coming year.

You can find out more about the benefits of free membership to the Helpforce Network on our website.