Our Back to Health framework
Helpforce works in partnership with local communities and health organisations to get volunteering services in place to help people in hospital, in their home and in the community. The Back to Health framework guides how we establish volunteering services.We can help you develop or evaluate volunteering services around the framework. Wherever possible, we’ll work with you to integrate services across the framework, amplifying their impact on people’s health and building resilience in our communities.
The Back to Health framework in action
Helpforce worked with George Eliot Hospital NHS Trust (GEH) to establish and evaluate an integrated pathway of volunteering services across place, supporting people in hospital and the community.
Waiting well
Calls from volunteers to:
- reduce missed appointments (so called, Did Not Attends or DNAs) by reminding people and removing any barriers to attendance. This resulted in a nearly 6% reduction in DNAs, now being boosted by the introduction of an AI tool to target calls to those most at risk.
- identify waiting patients’ support needs, for instance directing them to a local service that can help them prepare for surgery
Getting well
Response volunteers support better patient flow, focusing on discharge-related tasks such as:
- running urgent pathology samples to labs
- collecting and delivering discharge medication to wards
- delivering discharge medication to people’s homes, getting them home faster so freeing up bed space
Recovering well
Calls from volunteers within 72 hours of patient discharge:
- identify people’s needs, directing 15% of people to support services in the community, helping them recover and preventing unnecessary readmission to hospital
Living well
Building relationships with a wide range of community services, focused on:
- shifting resources from remedial to preventive support
- reducing health inequalities and building resilience through developing community volunteering services
Find out more about working with us
How we can help you
Here we explain how we can help you meet key challenges and the specialist services that allow us to do this.
Developing volunteering services
Evaluating volunteering services
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