Unlocking the power of volunteering
Lord Darzi’s review of the NHS in England laid bare the very real challenges in the system and called for “a collective endeavour” to turn this around.
For Helpforce and our partners, that collective endeavour must include urgent action to optimise the role of volunteers and the voluntary sector.
Here, we set out calls to action to achieve this.
Launching our calls to action
Everyone understands that we need to use all possible resources to fix the crisis in our NHS.
That’s why Helpforce brought together distinguished speakers and guests at a reception in the House of Commons to discuss how volunteering and the voluntary sector can play their full role in supporting our NHS, building on many impressive existing models.
We know from our work with dozens of partner organisations that volunteers can help to bring about the changes we need to see in our NHS: bringing care closer to home; getting people off waiting lists; supporting productivity in hospitals; and re-engaging staff.
At the reception on 28 November, we also launched our report, ‘Unlocking the power of volunteering to support our NHS’, setting out the evidence from successful volunteering services and our calls to action.
‘Unlocking the power of volunteering’ calls on NHS leaders and local authorities to commit to actions to fully integrate volunteering and the voluntary sector into health and care planning and delivery.
In this report, Helpforce highlights how well designed volunteer services have a positive and measurable impact on health and care.
We call for the contribution of volunteering and the voluntary sector to be recognised in the NHS 10-year plan and for NHS leaders and local authorities to commit to a step-change in integrating volunteering into health and care.
Please contact Vy Tran at vt@helpforce.community if you need the report in a different format.
We are calling for
DHSC and NHS England to recognise the importance of volunteering in the NHS 10-year plan:
This recognition will allow volunteers to make a meaningful contribution to help shift care closer to home, help people get off waiting lists and back to work and to support staff and patients in hospital.
NHS leaders to proactively engage with the voluntary and community sector on their biggest challenges:
Support the development of the voluntary and community sector infrastructure to enhance its capacity to engage with the NHS.Learn from existing effective models, foster meaningful partnerships between the NHS, local authorities and the voluntary and community sector to create strong networks of health and care support within local communities.
Involve the voluntary and community sector in the design and delivery of support to people before and after their hospital stays.
Provide consistent and long-term funding to allow the voluntary and community sector to plan and deliver their services more effectively.
Voluntary and community sector leaders to measure the impact of their work to better evidence its value to the NHS:
Measure the impact of their work by outcomes for people, not by volume of activity or time spent. This will enable the sector to better demonstrate its value and underpin future investment in the sector.You might be interested in
Our essential evidence
Explore Helpforce's unique data bank about the impact of volunteering on people's experience and wellbeing, and on staff, the wider organisation and on volunteers themselves.
Our Back to Health campaign
Helpforce works with organisations across health, care and the community to develop and evaluate services that optimise the difference volunteers can make.Here we explain how we can help you meet key challenges and the specialist services that allow us to do this.
About us
Volunteers are doing great things across health and care, in the NHS and in our communities – but volunteering is still not making the impact it could for patients, staff and on wider systems.Helpforce exists to make this happen. Here we explain how.
