Hillingdon Back to Health project: how volunteers are helping to improve health and wellbeing for local people

Watch this informative webinar to hear how volunteers are supporting local people in Brent and Hillingdon to attend their ophthalmology appointments more easily. This is the first project to be delivered through a joint partnership in North West London, where local hospital trusts, and voluntary organisations are working together to develop volunteering initiatives

The project, which focuses on the most deprived areas of the borough, aims to improve local people’s health and wellbeing, reduce pressure on services, create valuable and fulfilling roles for volunteers, and strengthen existing community volunteering capacity and capability.

Speakers:

• Josh Thorpe, Project Development and Education Services Manager, H4ALL
• Sara Miles, Project Manager, Helpforce
• Kate Crossan, Senior Data & Impact Analyst, Helpforce

"Patients receive a telephone call from a volunteer who follows a pre-approved script, enabling them to have a supportive conversation. This aids the volunteer’s understanding of how the patient has been managing while waiting for their appointment and any difficulties they may have had with accessing their appointment. The volunteers can then take any appropriate actions, such as providing guidance about the appointment, reassuring the patient and identifying opportunities for referral to community services. Volunteers can support individuals to access their appointments by arranging transportation, arranging an interpreter or asking the clinical lead to contact the patient."

A small selection of questions from the Q&A session

Q: What agreements are in place to ensure confidentiality of calls and are the volunteers DBS checked by the partnership organisation or by the volunteer services team of the Trust?

A: All the volunteers were DBS checked by H4All. There was training put in place around various bits but included confidentiality and boundaries. The Trust and steering group were part of agreeing this training. There was also a data sharing agreement between H4All and the Trust.

Q: Was the volunteer coordinator a paid member of staff or a volunteer?

A: A paid member of staff.

Q: Was the coordinator part of the voluntary service team or part of the clinical team?

A: Part of the voluntary service team.

Q: What equipment were the volunteers provided with or were the phone calls claimed as an expense?

A: The calls took place from H4All offices using their phones. A couple of new phones and lines were secured at the beginning of the project.

The slides for this webinar are not available however, the evaluation report is due to be published shortly. A link to the report will be in our next Helpforce Newsletter, due out mid April 2025. If you're not on the mailing list for the newsletter you can sign up on the link below.

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