Our dedicated volunteers offer practical and emotional support to our patients
They also provide 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.
Our recruitment process can take from one to three months. It will depend on how quickly you complete necessary checks and stages.
And we would like it to be a valuable experience for you too
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.
If you’d like to learn more before you apply, please phone us
Volunteering across the Barts Health: 020 7377 7792
Newham: 020 7363 8107
St Bartholomew's: 020 3765 8897
The Royal London: 020 7377 7334
Whipps Cross: 020 8535 6772
John Moss has been a volunteer at Whipps Cross for 13 years
He talks about his journey as a volunteer after retiring from the Metropolitan Police.
Volunteers who 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.
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 your availability for this role before applying.
This role is about working with our patients who 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.
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 in ensuring that our patient's journey and experience is the best it can be by helping patients feel comfortable from the moment they step into our hospitals.
We partner with Macmillan to provide 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 as visiting patients on the ward.
The Active Response Volunteer (ARV) role is the most popular role. 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 include
In addition, you can help patients and families at end-of-life care, help resolve visitor and patient issues with lost property or support 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.
We are lucky to have allies and friends who 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.
The museum hosts welcome visitors to the museum. If you have an interest in historical artefacts and would like to visit to our museums with their amazing history, then this is a great role for you.
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.
Archives
The Trust Archives hold the historical records and objects of the current Barts Health hospitals and many other hospitals, individuals and organisations. We are always looking for volunteers with some previous experience working with archives, to help us manage the vast array of historical information and artefacts.
We are committed to shaping and developing our services with the involvement of the local community. This includes ensuring that the patient's 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:
Applications for this role are currently closed. To register your interest for when we re-open the programme, please email us with ‘Patient Research Champion’ as the subject line.