With 107,000 vacant NHS roles across England placing health provision under intense pressure, campaigners say that super-charging the number of volunteers who help bolster services be “transformative”.
The proposal, from national healthcare volunteering charity Helpforce, reflects the immense impact that volunteers collectively have on the health service - including 70-year-old Lynn Jenkins who gifts her time to bring comfort and companionship to people approaching the end of their lives through a unique service run by Cambridge and Peterborough NHS Foundation Trust.
And it comes as a new YouGov survey conducted for Helpforce has revealed that 17% of people across the East would consider NHS volunteering.
Lynn said: “For me, volunteering is all about forging meaningful connections, meeting lovely patients and witnessing their courage and extraordinary resilience.”
Over 5,340 people already actively volunteer with the NHS across the East, taking on a variety of roles in hospital wards, clinics and community settings. The emphasis is on trained volunteers taking on basic tasks that alleviate pressure on doctors, nurses, and healthcare assistants – enabling medics to focus on delivering quality care.
In calling on the Government to launch “the biggest health volunteering recruitment drive since the pandemic”, Helpforce - which works with over a hundred NHS trusts across the country including Cambridge and Peterborough NHS Foundation Trust - is backed by leading health organisations including NHS Providers and the Health Foundation.
Lynn’s involvement with the NHS began during the pandemic when she saw a newspaper advert appealing for volunteers to join the ‘Community Butterfly Service’ – a title which both intrigued and attracted her.
She said: “When I read the advert and realised that it was about providing companionship for people receiving end-of-life care who may have few visitors or whose family and friends may need some respite, I thought ‘what a lovely idea’. It resonated with me as I’ve had experience of caring for members of my own family in their final months, including my mother, who had Non-Hodkinson Lymphoma, and realising how individuals in that situation can often feel very isolated.”
After signing-up, Lynn – a retired foster carer - received extensive training and support from expert NHS staff who run the service. She volunteers twice a week and currently visits two patients in their homes in Peterborough, making them cups of tea and engaging in conversation. One is a lady in her 80s with incurable cancer and the other, also in her 80’s, has heart failure.
“The patients really look forward to seeing a familiar face and talking about anything and everything. Sometimes it can be a conversation about the life they’ve led – including the jobs they’ve had and the families they’ve nurtured – while at other times the chat is focused on day-to-day practicalities and concerns,” explained Lynn. “What matters is that they have someone who genuinely wants to listen to them and who can help them to feel connected to the world at large.
“A few hours of my time means the world to the patients, but it’s also of vital support to their family carers because it allows them to get a couple of hours respite.”
Lynn, who lives in Ramsey St. Mary’s, Cambridgeshire, says the Community Butterfly Service, which was devised by the Trust’s Head to Toe charity together with its community nurses and voluntary services team, has had a transformative impact on her own life. “I was a very shy person before,” she explained. “Even speaking to someone in a supermarket brought horrors to me. Now I feel comfortable speaking to anyone. I never thought I could go into someone’s home and start talking to them, but now I can and I love it.”
The YouGov poll, which coincides with the launch of the Helpforce’s new ‘Giving Back, Transforming Care’ awareness campaign, highlighted that nearly two-thirds (65%) of people in the East support the idea of a mass NHS volunteer recruitment drive.
Helpforce chief executive, Amerjit Chohan, said: “After years of deep-rooted system-level challenges, the NHS remains under intense pressure, despite the valiant efforts of its staff and legions of existing volunteers. Out in communities, people feel the effects of long waiting lists and stretched services. It’s clear from YouGov’s poll that a swathe of the public across the East of England is willing to step forward and do what they can to help – just like Lynn did.
“We are calling on the Government to invest in the biggest health volunteering recruitment drive since the pandemic.
“YouGov’s poll reveals that 17% of people across the East of England would consider volunteering for the NHS – equivalent to around 881,000 individuals. Even if only two per cent could be enticed into volunteering roles that would result in NHS trusts across the region being bolstered by approximately 17,620 additional committed volunteers. Of course, volunteering can’t solve all the NHS’ problems, but evidence shows that it has a significant contribution to make.”
Helpforce’s own research found that 86% of frontline NHS staff nationwide believe that support from trained volunteers improves the care they can provide – underlining that volunteers are not intended to replace healthcare professionals, but to instead complement them.
Louisa Bullivant, Voluntary Services Manager for Cambridgeshire and Peterborough NHS Foundation Trust, said: “The incredible work of Lynn and our other Butterfly Volunteers brings comfort and support to those receiving end of life care. They make such a difference every day and their compassion lights the way for patients in our community.”
Helpforce’s evidence suggests that for every 10,000 new NHS volunteers recruited nationwide, 1.1 million hours of annual efficiency gains can be achieved by the health service.
Daniel Elkeles, Chief Executive of NHS Providers, said: “Tens of thousands of highly motivated volunteers of all ages and from all walks of life already gift their time and talents to NHS trusts nationwide and there is growing evidence that they make a significant contribution – not only improving the experiences of patients receiving healthcare, but also in terms of enhancing the working lives of the health professionals they support.
“Forward-thinking NHS trusts no longer view volunteering programmes as a ‘nice-to-have’ and instead regard them as a strategic imperative. There would be clear merit in a high-profile, government-led recruitment drive.”
At a national level, the YouGov poll found that 18 to 24-year-olds showed particular enthusiasm for NHS volunteering, with a third of respondents in this age group (33%) indicating that they would consider signing-up – compared to 28% of 25 to 34-year-olds, 23% in the 35-54 bracket, and 21% of those aged 55 and over.
Dr Jennifer Dixon DBE, Chief Executive of the Health Foundation, said: “It’s fascinating to see that young adults seem to have the highest levels of appetite for NHS volunteering and heartening that so many of them want to do something practical to help others in need, as well as support the NHS which in turn can offer them so much.
“As well as those aged 18 to 24 having a great deal to offer the NHS as volunteers, exposing them to healthcare settings is likely to interest them in a career in the NHS – which could be hugely worthwhile for them, and boost the NHS workforce with young, committed talent.”
When asked what would motivate them to volunteer for the NHS, the top reasons given by those who took part in the survey (nationally) were: making a difference to someone’s life, giving back to the NHS, and gaining a sense of purpose.
And across demographics, not knowing what kind of NHS volunteer roles are available and uncertainty around how to apply for positions were cited as barriers to volunteering – though the biggest obstacle identified was ‘not being able to commit sufficient time’.
People interested in healthcare volunteering opportunities in their local area can visit the NHS Volunteering website.