Volunteering
Volunteers at DCH provide support throughout the hospital and make a huge contribution. Our volunteers come from a variety of backgrounds and the experience and skills they bring to the hospital are greatly valued.
With volunteering now firmly embedded as part of the NHS Long Term Plan, we are striving to ensure that we can offer an excellent experience for all of our volunteers and that the roles we provide for volunteers are meaningful and supported.
Our volunteer roles
We have a number of volunteer roles in the hospital. These include our Response Volunteer team who support the hospital in two keys roles:
- Healthy Stay - supporting patients on wards, enhancing the care they are already receiving and contributing to an overall positive patient experience
- Healthy Visit - supporting patients and visitors on arrival to the hospital and during their visit as required, providing assistance to simply help make their visit a little better and to help ease anxieties. This includes meeting and greeting in main entrances and supporting in Outpatient departments. Our Healthy Visit volunteers support both the main hospital site and our Outpatient Assessment Centre
We are also looking for people to join our Activity Squads to support patients with companionship and activity. Having the time to spend with patients reading, playing games or reminiscence sessions with them can really help to support their wellbeing and having more volunteers who can support this will make a big difference.
The Trust offers its volunteers:
- free drinks while on shift
- travel expenses
- a chance to gain a National Volunteer Certificate
- afternoon tea and Christmas parties
We are also lucky to have support from our wonderful Pets as Therapy dogs come in with their owners regularly never fail to bring cheer and smiles to staff and patients across the hospital.
Our Patient Research Ambassadors volunteer with our Research and Innovation department promoting clinical research and providing patient voice to a number of research projects.
As a volunteer you also have a chance to get involved with our Your Voice – Patient Voice group who, along with our Patient Research Ambassadors and other new roles we are currently developing, form part of a new family of volunteers – our Patient and Public Voice Partners. Watch this space for further details on this.
Young Volunteer Programme
DCH was very lucky to be one of the hospitals awarded funding from the Pears Foundation and Community Lottery Fund in 2018 and is now working with the #iwill campaign to promote Youth Social Action and open up volunteer opportunities for young people.
Our summer volunteer programme was a great success and applications are now open for our next programme. You can find out more about the programme by contacting the Volunteer Support Team.
Volunteer Support team
As a DCH Volunteer you will be supported throughout your journey at the Trust. Our Volunteer Support team will be on-hand to support you from induction to settling you into the ward and/or department in which you are volunteering.
To find out more about volunteering please contact the team on volunteering@dchft.nhs.uk or call 01305 255351.