Health & Social Care

Rurality and Accessibility

Volunteer Centres play an active role in enabling health services to be delivered in rural areas that may have higher than average ageing populations. They provide volunteering services to health-focused organisations and activities, including the NHS.

In addition, they support, and sometimes directly deliver, services that enable people to access statutory provision through community transport schemes.

Mental and Physical Health

Volunteering impacts positively on physical and mental health, for both volunteers and the recipients of services provided through voluntary action.

Beneficiary Group	Percentage of community organisations in sample who report that they provide services to beneficiary group	Percentage of community organisations that provide services to the beneficiary group, who report that they involve volunteers in delivering their work
All of the following groups	13.1	78.2
Older people	42.2	85.6
Physical disabilities	38.9	61.1
Young people (16-24 yrs)	35.6	57.1
Women's issues	31.9	57.5
Mental health problems	28.8	73.3
Children under 16 years	28.2	51.6
Families	27.6	60.5
Men's issues	27.6	62.9
Learning difficulties	26.7	72.5
Disadvantaged rural areas	24.8	64.4
Low skills/poor education	17.3	71.2
Disadvantaged urban areas	17.1	63.9
Unemployed/workless	16.4	75.4
Homeless / badly housed	13.8	74.1
BME groups	11.2	80.4
Drug or alcohol problems	10.5	81.8
Victims of crime	10.5	69.8
Ex offenders	10.3	72.7
Migrant workers	9.1	73.7
Environmental issues	8.2	42.9
Asylum seekers	7.7	75
Lesbian, gay and bisexual	7.5	74.2

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Volunteers report positive correlations between their mental health and their volunteering activity:

Volunteering is good for you. 63% of 25-34 year olds and 62% of over 65's say volunteering helps them feel less stressed, while 71% of volunteers who offer their professional skills and experience say volunteering helps combat depression. Nearly half of all volunteers say volunteering has improved their physical health and fitness.

2004, ICM Research findings commissioned for CSV (Community Service Volunteers) and Barclays

Sustainable Community Strategies

Volunteer Centres contribute to health targets identified in the Sustainable Community Strategies across York and North Yorkshire, promoting a range of opportunities in health and social care settings, making cost savings for organisations in terms of time and money that would otherwise be duplicated for each individual organisation that wished to recruit volunteers to support their work. Volunteer Centres offer a wider variety of volunteering opportunities than individual organisations are able to, so there is increased likelihood of a volunteer finding a suitable placement.

Volunteering in the NHS

There are a wide range of volunteering roles within the NHS, as outlined in the report Volunteers Across the NHS: improving the patient experience and creating a patient-led service (Volunteering England, 2006). Click here to access the report.

A few of the activities that volunteers undertake in the NHS are in this drop down list:

Find out more…

Home visiting schemes, social groups, activity groups, the NHS, the local authority, care homes (for example, befriending schemes), & community groups all contribute to the health and wellbeing of the local community, keep people active, and enable people to build stronger social networks.

If you are a volunteer and want to contribute to health and wellbeing in your local area, contact your local Volunteer Centre to see what you can get involved in.

If you are an organisation that wants help with finding the right volunteers to support your work, contact your local Volunteer Centre to discuss how they can help you to open your opportunities to a wider audience.

Links & Resources:

Volunteers Across the NHS: improving the patient experience and creating a patient-led service (Volunteering England, 2006)

Since volunteering involves doing things, volunteering can help people to take part in activities that keep them physically active. The benefits of physical activity are well documented in relation to sporting and other physically demanding activities, as recognised by the government in its target to:

…increase levels of participation in physical activity and sport to 70% of individuals undertaking 30 minutes of physical activity five days a week by 2020. A series of Public Service Agreements underpin this aspiration, including increases in the take-up of cultural and sporting opportunities, increases in school PE and sport, and providing cleaner, safer and greener public spaces.

Physical activity in volunteering is not confined to sporting activity. Many volunteering activities involve some form of physical activity, so volunteering in many settings, as with Sports volunteering, can provide positive preventative health benefits.

Local Research

Lots of different community activities contribute in some way towards the health and wellbeing of individuals or communities, either directly, through schemes aimed specifically at mental and physical health, or indirectly, through activities that have positive effects on mental and physical health.

The Thriving Third Sector Report, 2008, provides evidence about the issues that are tackled by voluntary and community groups, and the populations they work with. The data below is amalgamated from two surveys, and provides an indication of who is benefiting from community activity, and the extent to which volunteers are involved in delivering those services. The majority of this community activity is focused on delivering front-line services, rather than infrastructure.