Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, with reference to the NHS Long-Term Workforce plan, what steps his Department plans to take to recognise the clinical capability of volunteers in enhancing NHS resilience and delivering NHS Career pathways.

The Department and NHS England value the excellent contribution that clinically trained volunteers make in supporting the National Health Service, from the thousands of trained Community First Responders across the ambulance service, to volunteers from partner organisations such as St John Ambulance who are commissioned to deliver NHS England’s national ambulance auxiliary offer.

NHS England continues to support the growth and development of volunteering across the NHS, which includes volunteer roles that support the delivery of clinical care where this is appropriate, whilst ensuring volunteers are never substituted for our substantive paid workforce.

Building on learning from the pandemic, NHS England is working with national emergency preparedness, resilience, and response teams, NHS organisations, and voluntary, community and social enterprise (VCSE) partners, regarding the role of volunteers and the VCSE sector in enhancing NHS resilience.

NHS England has also been working in partnership with Helpforce, St John Ambulance, and Barnardos on a range of initiatives to better support volunteers to take the next step into a career in the NHS.