NHS: Voluntary Work

(asked on 26th March 2025) - View Source

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps his Department plans to take to work with volunteers to (a) add resilience to the NHS workforce, (b) reduce waiting lists and (c) move care out-of-hospital and into the community.


Answered by
Karin Smyth Portrait
Karin Smyth
Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
This question was answered on 2nd April 2025

The National Health Service has always benefitted from the generous support of volunteers. Volunteers will continue to play an important and complementary role in the NHS and care system, supporting patients, families, and staff.

NHS England invested £10 million last year to support programmes across 15 integrated care systems to improve volunteering infrastructure. NHS England is also continuing to invest in the NHS volunteer recruitment portal and deliver on recommendations from the NHS Volunteer Taskforce Report from 2023.

A central part of the 10-Year Health Plan will be our workforce and those who support our workforce, so we can ensure the NHS has the right people, in the right places, with the right skills to deliver the right care to patients when they need it.

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