Rank Foundation Grants

The hospice sector is facing a retirement crisis over the next few years. One third of the hospice clinical workforce is aged over 55 compared to less than one fifth in the NHS. The loss of experienced clinical staff all at once would be devastating for the sector.

To help address this impending crisis, Hospice UK has developed a programme in partnership with the charity Helpforce to create routes into hospice clinical careers at all levels, and to establish a pipeline of new clinical staff through a Volunteer to Career (VtC) pathway.

Hospice UK’s Volunteer to Career will be a clinically led programme, whereby local volunteers considering a career in healthcare are recruited by hospices to undertake 60 hours of certificated training over the course of one year. Volunteers will be supported throughout the year by a dedicated Clinical Lead at each participating hospice.

At the end of the programme, hospices can recruit the volunteers, knowing they represent a talented, compassionate pool of potential employees, who can add real value to their clinical workforce. 

In partnership with Helpforce and the Rank Foundation, Hospice UK will:

• Engage 10 hospices, help them identify and build internal capacity to deliver the work and find and match interested volunteers from their local communities.
• Provide a blended learning programme for participating hospice Clinical Leads, who will work within their hospices to mentor the new volunteers. This includes help with project planning and data collection to build evidence of the value of the project.

By the end of their training, volunteers will be supported onto a career pathway aligned to your hospice’s identified workforce needs i.e. either via a university course, workplace apprenticeship, or paid employment route into eventually becoming a nursing associate (clinical band 2 or 3).

For full details of the programme please read the Information and Criteria Specification document, which is in the Apply Now section below.

We will be running an information webinar on Wednesday, 15 May 11:00-12:00 to discuss the Hospice UK Volunteer to Career programme, and the grant application process, with staff from Helpforce and Hospice UK.

This webinar is being hosted by Helpforce.

Please register your details here to join. 

If you have any questions or problems, please contact Helpforce.

Total available funding in this round is £100,000 and we are looking to award 10 grants of £10,000 each. 

This is to contribute towards the cost of supporting Clinical Leads to undertake this piece of work. Please note that other expenses arising from the programme (e.g. volunteer expenses) will need to be covered by the hospice. 

The deadline for applications is 17:00 on Friday, 7 June 2024. Applicants will be informed whether or not they have been successful in early July 2024.

Eligible organisations are independent adult and children's hospices that are members of Hospice UK and based in the UK, Isle of Man and the Channel Islands.

An outline timetable for the programme is given below. 

• 7 June: Deadline for submission of applications is 17:00
• 15 May: Information Webinar 11:00-12:00
• Early July: Notification of decisions to hospices

We encourage you to read about how other hospices have benefitted from running the Volunteer to Career programme: 

• St Oswald's Hospice in Newcastle-upon-Tyne have a webpage dedicated to their experience of running the VtC programme
• St Elizabeth's Hospice in Suffolk wrote an article for Helpforce, offering five top tips for running the VtC programme - reflecting on their experience. 

Both websites are well worth a read!