Volunteering FAQs

The process of application to starting your role can take up to three months. This depends on how quickly you complete your pre-placement checks and whether your role is available.

The recruitment process consists of the following stages:

• Assessment
• Training
• Occupational Health check
• Disclosure and Barring Service check
• Satisfactory References

At Barts Health NHS Trust we cover four main hospitals, Royal London Hospital, St Bartholomew's, Newham University Hospital and Whipps Cross Hospital. When applying for volunteering please ensure you specify which hospital you would prefer to apply for.

We are very fortunate to have volunteers who come in to give their time for our patients and staff. We are always looking at ways to work with our volunteers to find a suitable role that fits them.

The application process can be intensive and so we ask our volunteers to commit to a minimum of six months, any shorter time commitment would be cost inefficient.

Buggy (Whipps Cross) 

Volunteers that like driving and would be interested in driving the cherished buggy to help patients, visitors and staff to get to their destination across the site. For this role you will require a full clean driving license.

Chaplaincy

If you are interested in providing spiritual support and have empathetic and great communication skills this role could be the right for you. You will work directly with our chaplaincy team who are well regarded for their expertise in providing a confidential and independent support to our patients/visitors/staff most in need. There is rigorous and extensive training involved so please consider your availability for this role before applying.  

Dementia Buddy

This role is about working with our patients that have dementia. Sometimes they feel very lost and anxious and need that bit of extra kindness and help and as a Dementia Buddy you can really make a difference. You will receive training and support.

Meet and Greeter

This is the starting point for many of our volunteers. We all know how big and disorientating hospitals can be particularly if you are anxious about your appointment and don’t know where to go. As a Meet and Greet volunteer you will play an important part ensuring that our patients’ journey and experience is the very best it can be by helping patients feel comfortable from the moment, they step in to our hospitals

Macmillan Cancer Information

Macmillan is partnered with Barts Health Trust and provides specialist services to our cancer patients. There are several roles for volunteers such as supporting the Macmillan Centres and providing patient information as well as visiting patients on the ward and ensuring that information leaflets are always available.

Active Response Volunteers

The Active Response Volunteer (ARV) role is the most popular role as it is very diverse and every day is different. The ARV is about ensuring that we helping, the patients and areas across the hospital that require our help. Clinicians will either bleep or call volunteers to ask for their help and the ARV will attend the ward or service requiring support.

Some of the things that an ARV might do includes: supporting mealtimes, collecting medications from the pharmacy, helping with patients that are lonely/anxious, shopping or playing games and activities with patients. In addition, you can help patients and family at End-of-Life Care, help resolve visitor and patients issues with lost property or supporting the emergency department when under pressure. If you like to be busy and enjoy a challenge this role is for you. There are over 5 modules of training that you can do to continually develop your training and experience.

 Patient Research Champion

The Patient Research Champion plays a very important role in supporting the clinical research activities and trials. 

There are a number of ways in which you can help us to raise the profile of research across Barts Health NHS Trust and form closer links between research teams and the local communities we serve. These will cover tasks such as making sure we are displaying posters and leaflets for approved studies in our hospital reception areas, offering a ‘lay’ perspective to researchers on the design and development of their studies, volunteering at research events, conducting simple surveys and lots more besides. 

Therapy Pets

Did you know that stroking a domestic pet can have a real therapeutic effect which includes: lowering blood pressure, calming down stress levels, distraction and more besides? Our therapy pets bring so much joy to our hospitals and Have you got a pet (usually dogs) that likes to be cuddled and has an excellent temperament

Barts Guild Trolley, Friends of Royal London Trolley, Newham Hospital Trolley

Barts Health Trust is very lucky to have allies and friends that fundraise and support our hospitals and patients with funding and by providing services to our patients, visitors and staff. One of the vital services they provide is a trolley that takes refreshment items around to our patients.

If you would like to apply, please complete the section available on the application form or contact the team who can support you.

Archives 

Museum host welcome visitors to the museum. If you have an interest in historical artefacts and would like to show visitors around our museums with their amazing history then this is great role for you. 

Archive collections volunteer. Our hospitals have significant archives and we are always looking for volunteers with archiving experience to help us manage the vast array of historical information and artefacts belonging to Barts Health Trust. 

Patient Partners

Barts Health NHS Trust is committed to shaping and developing our services with the involvement of the local community. This includes ensuring that the patients voice is used to inform decision making to improve outcomes for people using the NHS and our hospitals

We have plethora of forums and communities across our hospital where you can contribute and share your patient experience and play your part in helping us to make real and lasting change.

If you are keen to help support your local hospital as a patient voice these are your options as

·       Youth Empowerment Squad (RLH)

·       Patient Voice

·       Renal Peer Mentors

·       Royal London  - Patient Panel

·       Whipps Cross  - Patient Panel

Activity Trolley Volunteers (Clinical)

Do you like arts and crafts? We are looking for friendly volunteers who can take the craft trolley to the wards, interact with patients and get them involved in some crafting.

If you have ever stayed in hospital, you might know how dull and boring it can get and this activity is of such value to our patients and can really help to their recovery and can act as a distraction from pain and anxiety.

Beauty therapies and hairdressers

There is nothing that can make any of us feel better than a bit of pampering and for our patients this is especially important.  

Duke of Edinburgh (DoFE)

We are an approved provider for the Duke of Edinburgh awards. If you are part of the scheme and would like to consider volunteering option at Barts Health NHS Trust please contact: Thomas.conneely@nhs.net

Creative Art roles 

We are currently recruiting volunteers for three exciting roles with Vital Arts, Barts Trust's inhouse creative health team. Our Walk and Talk / Creative Bedside Volunteers support patients on the wards through gentle art walks and one-to-one creative activities, helping to encourage mobility, conversation and wellbeing.

Our Collections Care Volunteer works behind the scenes to help document, care for and maintain our hospital art collection across St Bartholomew's Hospital.

Finally, our Marketing and Social Media Volunteer supports the team in sharing stories, promoting programmes and celebrating the impact of creative health across Barts Health. Whether you’re interested in patient engagement, heritage and collections, or communications, there is a role to suit a range of skills and interests.

Patient leaflet assessors

If you would like a role that support you to volunteer from home, we are looking for volunteers to read through new information leaflets for our patients. It is important to get independent insights in to how accessible the information that we give to patients is easy to understand.

This role requires 2 hours of your time twice a month to feed back your insights in to new patient leaflets. 

If you are interested, please contact Nancy.whiskin@nhs.net  

We receive a very high number of applications and limited roles, we are unable to place everyone who applies.

It is very important you provide as much information as possible when you complete the application form. We also recommend you read the task description of the role you are applying for before you apply.

If you have been unsuccessful, you must only re-apply once six months has passed.

• Assessment
• Training
• Occupational Health check
• Disclosure and Barring Service check

If you are interested in completing work experience, working in clinical setting in laboratories or observing or shadowing clinicians, please visit our work experience page.
We do not deal with work experience, you must contact the work experience team directly.

We do train and induct all our volunteers before you start you on your role. All our volunteers must attend induction training and a placement induction before you begin. We also ask you to complete some online training.

We provide additional training once you have started your role.

We do not deal with shadowing or placements you must contact the public health team directly for any queries.

You must be over 16 to apply to volunteer with us.

We do sometimes offer one-off volunteer events and some seasonal volunteer roles, this will be shown in the volunteer opportunities page which is updated regularly.

We do provide one-off volunteering opportunities for employees of companies who would like to support us. Please contact our team for more information.

You are entitled to claim up to £6 a day for travel expenses, providing you submit the correct receipts. You can also collect a lunch voucher with a value of £5.00 which can be used in the hospital canteen, however only volunteers who do at least 4.5 hours per day are entitled to use the voucher.

We always try to find suitable roles for our volunteers…

Please be aware that at any time during the recruitment process application, assessment, pre-placement checks and training - deselection might happen.