Proud to support the Great Western Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust

Thank you for expressing an interest in Voluntary Services at the Great Western Hospital.

Our Volunteers are amazing people that are at the very heart of our healthcare service in Swindon, and who contribute so much to our hospital and community service.

Volunteers make a huge contribution to the health and wellbeing of the nation, giving their time, skills, and expertise freely each year to support the NHS. They are crucial to the NHS’s vision for the future of health and social care.

Our NHS service has been under increasing pressure since the response to COVID-19 began, and there will be further challenges ahead, no doubt. Workload remains a pressing concern and we have all been reminded how critical it is to look after our people – and that we need to do more.

During the pandemic our volunteers showed great energy, creativity, and drive in aiding solutions to support our patients and staff. We recruited younger volunteers, trained, and deployed them faster than ever before and created new roles quickly and effectively. This was just the beginning of the commitment we are now undertaking to make real and lasting change for our staff, patients, and volunteers here at Great Western.

The arrival of COVID-19 acted as a springboard for change, bringing about an incredible response from our volunteers and identified opportunities for service growth. We are already starting to see change emerging and volunteers have rightly been recognised for the enormous contribution they make.

We will build on this momentum and continue to transform Voluntary Services, mobilising a ‘movement for improvement’ within the Trust, recruiting more volunteers, enhancing their visibility, developing new volunteer roles and in turn improving patient experience.

Voluntary Services will become a place for people seeking to invest time, talent and commitment on a voluntary basis for the benefit of their local health service and we will welcome them with open arms and a good old cuppa!

For most of our roles we ask you to commit to a minimum of 3 hours a week, for at least 6 months, although our Brighter Futures roles are more flexible.