Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether he plans to reinstate the NHS and Care Volunteer Responders scheme within the new infrastructure of the National Health Service.

The NHS Volunteer Responders programme was first established as part of the COVID-19 response and then adapted to respond to other organisational pressures. However, a model that worked well in a national crisis is no longer the most cost-effective way of facilitating the contribution of our much-valued volunteers. There are no plans to reinstate the scheme.

Whilst the NHS and Care Volunteer Responders service is ending, the NHS Volunteer recruitment portal is available, with 70 health and care organisations advertising opportunities. As the service grows, every National Health Service or voluntary organisation in health will be able to post opportunities and recruit volunteers to support their local communities, with a full launch of the service planned for later this year.

There are also over 72,000 volunteers who continue to support NHS trusts directly in over 300 different volunteer roles, which are unaffected by the closure of the NHS Volunteer Responders programme.