Results from an analysis of hospice community volunteering
Published on: 20 May 2019
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This report presents the findings of a study aimed at mapping the extent of community volunteering in hospices and gathering information about the services already in place, as well as identifying any barriers to developing such services.
The last few years have seen some very significant changes in hospice volunteering as volunteers have become increasingly involved in the direct support of people with palliative and end of life care (PEOLC) needs in the community, along with their families and carers.
In this context volunteers are more empowered, working alone with much less day-to-day supervision from staff. As this area of palliative care continues to grow it is important to understand more about the extent, frameworks and value of community volunteering.
This has prompted a Hospice UK project to explore this area in more depth and to develop an electronic signposting resource built on the experiences of current hospice community volunteering programmes.
Project aims
The aims of the project were to:
map the extent of community volunteering activity in hospice organisations
gather information about the services already in place and identify any barriers to developing such services
create an electronic resource to help the development of voluntary support in this context.
Author
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Dr Ros Scott, Voluntary Sector Researcher and Consultant.
Acknowledgements
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We would like to acknowledge and thank all those who responded to the survey and interviews.
We would also like to acknowledge the contribution and support of the project reference group:
Carly Attridge, Head of Volunteering, St Joseph’s Hospice, London
Gillian Austin, Head of Volunteering, The Hospice of St Francis, Berkhamstead
Barbara Gale, Chief Executive, St Nicholas Hospice, Bury St Edmunds
Jean Hindmarch, Projects Director, Hospice UK
Melanie Hodson, Information Specialist, Hospice UK
Katrina MacNamara, Director of Service Development and Improvement, Together for Short Lives
Professor Catherine Walshe, Director of the International Observatory on End of Life Care, Lancaster University
Thank you also to Amber Morgan, Programmes Coordinator Hospice UK for her support to the project.
