Volunteer with us

Volunteer with us

Our dedicated volunteers

We simply could not do all that we do without our inspiring, passionate, and caring team of volunteers.

Our dedicated volunteers offer practical and emotional support to our patients, providing a helping hand for our staff and a friendly face for our visitors. They can support the hospital in several ways from welcoming and directing visitors, giving out refreshments on the wards or chatting to patients. 

What’s in it for you?

You’ll make new friends, meet and work with new people from all walks of life, learn new skills and gain new experience. Our volunteers tell us they feel more confident and happy by giving back and helping others.

Volunteering opportunities

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 working directly with our chaplaincy team, this one is for you. There is extensive training involved so please consider before 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 Greeters

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 best it can be by helping patients feel comfortable from the moment they step into our hospitals

Macmillan Cancer Information

Macmillan is partnered with Barts Health Trust and provides specialist services to our cancer patients. There are a number of roles that volunteers support the activities of the services such as supporting the Macmillan Centres and patient visits as well visiting patients on the ward

Active Response Volunteers

The Active Response Volunteer (ARV) role is the most popular role. It is diverse and every day is different. The ARV is about ensuring that we help the patients and areas across the hospital that most need our help and clinicians either bleep or call volunteers to ask for their help. 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 more than five modules of training that you can do to continually develop your training and experience.

Patient Research Champion

The Patient Research Champion plays an important role in supporting clinical research activities and trials.

There are several ways in which you can help us to raise the profile of research across Barts Health NHS Trust. We want to 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.

Pets As Therapy

Details to follow.

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

Barts Health Trust is 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.

Museum and Archives 

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

Archive collections volunteer. Our hospitals have significant archives. 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.

Forums / Panels

Barts Health 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 a 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:

  • Youth Empowerment Squad (RLH)
  • Patient Voice
  • Renal Peer Mentors
  • Royal London - Patient Panel
  • Whipps Cross - Patient Panel