Key points:
- Co-ordinating voluntary services over 6 NHS Trusts
- Reasons why people choose to volunteer in the National Health Service
- Pet volunteers
- Working out the economic value of volunteers
Co-ordinating Voluntary Services Over 6 NHS Trusts
The South Devon Healthcare Trust Voluntary Services Department supports six NHS Trusts covering coastal holiday resorts and a large rural community. The six trusts include two acute Trusts, one mental health and learning disability Trust and three primary care Trusts. A team of fifty seven volunteer managers made up of twelve volunteers and forty five staff manage 665 individuals volunteering in a range of roles across 37 hospital and community sites. Some volunteers have more than one role. The area covered includes one acute hospital, a satellite unit from another acute Trust and nine smaller community hospitals. South Devon Healthcare Trust employs a Head of Voluntary Services and a Voluntary Services Co-ordinator based at Paignton Hospital. They co-ordinate the voluntary services and also work to support and develop independent health-related community-based voluntary organisations in South Devon.
Volunteers undergo a selection process which involves an application form, two references, a health check if they have access to patients, and an enhanced Criminal Records Bureau screening if they have access to children or vulnerable adults. Confidentiality forms are also signed by volunteers who receive induction training to cover the essentials of volunteering in the NHS and specific training according to their role. After a trial period volunteers meet with their manager to review the volunteer placement and to seek an alternative or additional placement if needed.
Volunteers joining the Trusts are screened and then registered on a central database which is regularly updated and monitored with the help of the volunteer managers.
The current average volunteer age is 61. Volunteers may have more than one role, or may work in different hospitals fulfilling the same or different roles and this information is recorded on the database. There are more than 32 different volunteer roles which include:
- breast cancer befrienders who are women who have had previous experience of breast cancer and work closely with patients for one to nine months depending on their treatment.
- nutrition volunteers who sit with hospital patients during meal times to encourage and support them to eat
- skin camouflage volunteers in the Dermatology Clinic, recruited and managed by the Red Cross
- Chaplaincy volunteers who support the work of the Chaplain on the wards
- linen volunteers who make special items for patients in hospital
Young volunteers
The Voluntary Services Department encourages young people to volunteer subject to a thorough risk assessment. One 12 year old volunteer worked with her 13 year old friend, to successfully help with day centre activities for older patients.
Volunteers with special needs
Some volunteers who may be vulnerable are given ‘buddies’ who are generally more experienced volunteers, carefully picked by the volunteer manager. This system is a way of supporting volunteers who may not be confident enough to volunteer on their own, or who have health problems that need to be monitored.
"We’ve been able to assimilate quite a few people who perhaps couldn’t do a voluntary job on their own, but with a buddy they can, and so far we’ve been 100% successful with that."
There are several NHS volunteers throughout South Devon who need additional support or adjustments to enable them to volunteer.
"We do as much as we possibly can to provide special facilities or equipment for people who need them so they can do their voluntary work. We try to accommodate everybody."
The door of the radio studio in one hospital was widened and the toilet area altered to accommodate one wheelchair user who was a volunteer radio DJ.
Reasons for volunteering in the NHS
The Voluntary Services Department recruits through four volunteer agencies and a weekly slot in the local press. There is also a website. Volunteers give many reasons for volunteering which include;
- giving structure to the day
- building new social relationships
- giving something back
- gaining experience in the NHS to gain access to training or work
- a chronic disorder or disability which prevents employment
Satisfied volunteers are also likely to pass on positive experiences by word-of-mouth to friends and family. One of the most popular volunteering choices is working with children in the community baby clinics and other child health facilities.
"People are often keen to work in the NHS. They can see a need for what they do and I think that’s one of the greatest motivators of volunteers…They can see the benefit."
The popularisation of the health service is also seen as a motivating factor for some volunteers. The increase in the number of hospital dramas and documentaries may be significant in helping to attract people to the NHS.
"I think that people like to be where the action is. There’s something quite attractive about it, that they are in a setting where real dramas are occurring, where there are real staff about, real patients, and they are actually playing a part in that. I’m sure that makes a difference."
With the development of a Volunteer Representatives’ Forum in October 1997 there has been improved consultation about volunteer recruitment, induction and all aspects of volunteering.
Pet Volunteers
The Voluntary Services Department works with a charity called ‘Pets as Therapy’ which provides cats and dogs to visit people in hospital and in the community. Although initially staff needed to be persuaded of the benefits to patients, these pets have proved extremely popular. Pets are health checked before they may be considered and do not visit people who have asthma or other allergy problems. Owners and their pets attend an interview and are then taken to meet staff before a final decision is made about registration as a volunteer with the Trust.
In one particular case at Paignton Hospital, a patient who had not communicated with anybody while he was there was introduced to a Pets as Therapy dog accompanied by his owner.
"The patient beckoned the dog and the dog went over. The patient burst into tears and began to tell the volunteer that he’d had a dog like that years ago and he missed him terribly. The dog carried on visiting the patient who then began to communicate with staff on the ward."
Working out the contribution of volunteers
South Devon Health Services calculate the contribution of volunteers as follows:
The average volunteer placement is for 5 hours per week, and there are 817 workplace positions throughout South Devon. If each volunteer works for fifty weeks per year then
5 x 817 x 50 = 204,250 hours of volunteering time per year donated to the Trust
These figures are broken down for each Trust and made available to their Chief Executives. They can also be broken down by type of volunteering so that library volunteers donate 4,172 hours per year, and volunteers provide 30,505 hours of fundraising time per year, in addition to the money they raise through fundraising.
It is hoped that in future the Trusts can calculate the impact volunteers have on achieving targets. Fundraising for equipment and buildings can be reasonably easily quantified, but providing figures to show the positive impact which volunteers have on acute and community services is more difficult to prove.
"When the database has been updated I write to all the managers and they cascade the information down to their volunteers…Any kind of success in their particular Trust is passed on to the individual volunteers by their manager."
Contact details:
Judy Lawson
Head of Voluntary Services
South Devon Healthcare Trust
Paignton Hospital
Church St
Paignton
TQ3 3AG
01803 546551
e-mail judy.lawson@nhs.net
