Building community connections in North Warwickshire – Growing volunteering across health and care
What does volunteering mean to the NHS?
Volunteers make a huge contribution to the health and wellbeing of the nation, giving their time, skills and expertise freely each year to support the NHS.
Volunteers are crucial to the NHS’s vision for the future of health and social care, as partners with, not substitutes for, skilled staff.
There are many different roles available within the NHS; allowing people of all ages and backgrounds to find challenging and rewarding opportunities which reflect their availability, ambitions and passions.
How volunteers can help:
Alongside brilliant professional staff, volunteers help to make care more effective – or even reduce the need for treatment in the first place:
- Keeping patients active and mobile
- Reassurance and practical support
- Preventing falls and reducing readmission
- Helping vulnerable patients to eat and drink
- Speeding up discharge
- Getting people home from hospital
- End of life care
What could volunteering mean for you?
Although it can be hard to find time to volunteer, volunteering can bring enormous benefits to both volunteer and organisation!
- It is a great way to get involved and meet other like-minded people!!
- Helping others gives you a chance to give back or make a difference to those people around you.
- Volunteering is good for your health and well-being
- It can help protect both your mental and physical health.
- Volunteering offers an opportunity to develop new skills or to build on your existing experience and knowledge.
- Volunteering can give you a ‘sense of purpose’ and ‘even advance your career! (Volunteering in a Hospital offers insight into working in Healthcare and some volunteers have gone on to secure jobs at in hospitals or elsewhere within the NHS).
If you are interested in volunteering and wish to know more about how it works and the opportunities available to you please contact the following organisations.
Helpforce
Helpforce is currently partnering with George Eliot Hospital NHS Trust to recruit volunteers!
Helpforce partners with health and care organisations to transform how they deliver volunteer services. They work with NHS hospital Trusts, integrated care systems and partnerships, and voluntary and community sector organisations to increase volunteering opportunities and accelerate their impact.
The partnership between Helpforce and George Eliot Hospital has led to a significant milestone in the development of the Back to Health Framework.
A critical aspect of the Back to Health Framework (BTHF) is how volunteers and volunteering can be a catalyst for generating greater collaboration at a community level Focusing on how the hospital trust and community organisations can work together to improve wellbeing and reduce pressure on services.
George Eliot Hospital (GEH) is part of the Coventry and Warwickshire Integrated Care System (ICS). Warwickshire North has a population of around 200,000, including urban areas such as Nuneaton and Bedworth and rural communities. The BTHF believes that if we can build better collaboration between local partners we will find opportunities for us to work together to improve health and wellbeing by encouraging more volunteering.
This is the start of GEH working more effectively with different local communities. The initial signs could not be more positive. They have emerged with a set of achievable ideas for local volunteering and a group of people committed to seeing these come to fruition.
They provide continued support and offer training opportunities to Volunteers relevant to their role. They also engage with Volunteers to fully utilise any special skills and interests that they may have.
For all expressions of interest to see if volunteering is right for you please contact:
Becky Millward – Patient Experience Manager
George Eliot Hospital NHS Trust
07881 887442
For more information on Helpforce please follow the link below to visit the following websites:
CAVA – Community & Voluntary Action
Whether you’re looking to volunteer, or you’re an organisation looking to recruit volunteers, CAVA can help. Their remit is to promote, support and develop volunteering across the region.
CAVA is the gateway to thousands of volunteer roles available across the county. Over 800 local and national organisations use us to promote their roles via our online matching service, Volunteer Connect*. This fast and efficient platform lets organisations find you, as well as enabling you to search through over 1,200 roles.
Every year they help thousands of potential volunteers to find the right role for them, matching their skills with opportunities in voluntary, not-for- profit and public sector organisations, in addition to providing them with practical advice and information.
They also work closely with hundreds of local organisations using or seeking volunteers, offering free advice, information and guidance in the use of volunteers whilst promoting equal opportunities and good practice.
There are hundreds of different ways to volunteer across Warwickshire and Solihull. No matter who you are, how much time you have or what your reasons for volunteering are, there’s a volunteering role just right for you. You can choose to volunteer on a regular or short term basis (such as doing a shift at an event), or from at home.
Volunteering can be a dynamic, rewarding way to give back to your community – with great benefits to your CV and your mental wellbeing. For more information on volunteering and how it can benefit you please follow the link below:
