Volunteering for Health is a £10m programme being delivered through a partnership between NHS Charities Together, NHS England, and CW+.
Volunteering for Health aims to create the conditions within local health systems for volunteering to thrive. It will test and build volunteering infrastructure, through collaboration of statutory and VCSE partners, empowering communities to improve health and wellbeing in ways that matter most to local people.
The programme will speed up change by helping to break down barriers to volunteering, test new volunteering infrastructure models, and develop guidance and best practice for all systems. It aims to influence the policy environment and increase our understanding of the impact of volunteers and volunteering across the NHS, alongside the potential role of NHS charities in helping the NHS to deliver the best care.
The programme is funding 15 partnerships across England that will use this to develop and deliver volunteer projects in their local area. The 15 projects are diverse, innovative and, above all, have a clear ambition to grow and strengthen volunteering in health systems so that everyone gets better healthcare.
Each Volunteering for Health partnership receives a mix of tailored support and funding – up to £550,000 each over the three-year partnership.
The Volunteering for Health: Learning into Action Guides turn learning from 15 local partnerships into practical recommendations that help leaders across health, local government and VCSE organisations strengthen volunteering and deliver national priorities:
Demonstrates how volunteers are supporting prevention, improving hospital discharge, connecting people with community services and strengthening neighbourhood-based care.
Explores how volunteering can support workforce development through volunteer to employment pathways, enhanced patient experience and stronger collaboration across health, care and the VCSE sector.
Shares practical learning on developing volunteer manager networks, shared standards and training resources that strengthen volunteer management across health and care.
Shares learning from partnerships developing passporting models across NHS, local authority and VCSE organisations.
Explores how local partnerships are widening participation by working with communities, reducing barriers to volunteering and creating more inclusive opportunities.
Leaders should use the insights and recommendations to drive strategic planning, inform service design and support a sustainable, skilled workforce across their systems and partnerships.
This project aims to improve training, learning and support through a new online Volunteering Academy. With help from several partners, it will build on existing training to strengthen how volunteering works across the region and with diverse communities and to support career pathways into health and care.
Split into two stages, this project looks to streamline volunteering in the East of England. This includes developing joined-up systems to improve quality of support and outcomes for volunteers and patients and to offer greater flexibility and accessibility so volunteers can carry out their roles in different localities.
To streamline volunteering and eliminate duplication, this project will develop a shared volunteering infrastructure and ‘volunteer passport’. It will also improve pathways into employment in the healthcare sector, make volunteering more accessible for individuals with the poorest health outcomes, and work with businesses to establish a ‘volunteer interview guarantee’ scheme.
Using the Core20Plus5 priorities to improve equitability, this project aims to drive uptake of volunteering among communities facing barriers to healthcare by strengthening relationships with grassroots organisations. Project partners will also work together to improve the overall volunteering experience, develop a pathway into employment and make it easier to share volunteers across organisations.
Darlington Volunteers intends to improve the onboarding process for volunteers, including help with DBS checks and safeguarding, and how volunteers are supported in their roles. It aims to increase the diversity of volunteers to represent the local population and expand its reach, and has proposed supporting the County Durham and Darlington hospital discharge programme.
Based in the North East and Yorkshire, this youth-focused project aims to improve recruitment and onboarding and remove barriers to participation, along with sharing volunteers and data. Projects including a passport-lite ecosystem will enhance the volunteering experience and increase opportunities. Meanwhile, learnings will be used to inform volunteering more widely.
This project aims to build a coherent volunteering infrastructure in Liverpool by developing existing and new pathways to volunteering including online, improving diversity of volunteers, supporting local enterprises and creating a community of practice to share learnings. Partners seek to influence wider strategic priorities and promote streamlined working across the region.
Phased over three years, this project aims to create a shared volunteering infrastructure, where local health and care priorities are better supported by volunteering, the volunteer experience is improved, and innovative approaches are shared across geographical and sector boundaries in Hampshire and the Isle of Wight.
Partners of Volunteer Somerset are working together to ‘reimagine’ volunteering by testing and innovating place-based approaches to volunteering, creating opportunities to attract volunteers from diverse backgrounds and developing a simplified and integrated way to volunteer across the health and care system, with a common approach to recruiting, management and impact measurement.
Building on an existing coordinated network, volunteers will benefit from an agreement between hospital and third sector organisations to enable them to work flexibly across the health and care sector and to follow a consistent and system-wide application and training process. The project will also see volunteers provide support to individual patients throughout their experience.
With an aim to promote best practice and centralise health volunteering across Birmingham and Solihull ICB, this project will streamline recruitment processes and create new roles to reflect current needs including tackling health inequalities. Volunteers will be supported to progress between roles and gain new skills for employment in the NHS.
Building on expertise from the voluntary, community or social enterprise sector, this project seeks to build a coherent volunteering infrastructure by streamlining processes. This includes recruitment and training, breaking down barriers, promoting learning from current projects and developing new roles to support areas including social prescribing and health inequalities.
This project aims to diversify the volunteer workforce within the health and care system by creating opportunities and removing barriers for underrepresented people. It will streamline recruitment and retention processes to give volunteers flexibility, provide training and support, trial new programmes closer to communities and embed volunteering in decision making.
This project’s focus is to develop an integrated volunteer pathway and accelerate community-led pilots in the Black Country. It will integrate volunteering into healthcare workforce planning, utilise current expertise to engage and support volunteers, improve volunteering routes, diversify the workforce, create bespoke NHS careers pathways and invest in infrastructure to streamline recruitment and training.
For more information about the programme, please contact Kate Heywood, Health Programme Lead at CW+, at kate.heywood@cwplus.org.uk.
If you would like to read the 2025 annual report, please contact volunteering@anhsc.org.uk.
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