The pressure and demand on hospices is only increasing. With an aging population, it’s important to note, this demand will continue to increase in the next few years. So, how important will volunteers be in the future? We’re aware of the immense impact volunteers make today- they are the backbone for many hospice services.

In 10 years time, could the role of volunteers look?

Building on best practice…

Hospices will need to adapt to the growing demand for care so can we strengthen hospices best practices to help ease increasing pressures. In the context of volunteers, a large volunteer workforce could be needed. To do so, there should be plans to encourage growing recruitment.

It would be beneficial to have a volunteer management system in these times to help you recruit, retain and realise the potential of your volunteers (and yes, we mean us!) You can start a FREE trial with us, here at TeamKinetic, through our website – or book in a demo with us today! 

After all that plugging, why not work towards developing a package for volunteer training. The quality of training is key for volunteers to deliver the best care to patients and their families. While training costs money, it means volunteers become an integrated part of hospices and their team. These packages should be general and available to all, but they should also have the chance to be adopted and changed at a local level…

The perception of volunteers also looks to have improved. They are too essential to be left out of any hospice strategy for extending the impact a hospice can make to those who need its services. If you’re looking for new volunteer recruits, why not get your current volunteers to help? They may have reaches in the community that the hospice doesn’t. 

As volunteers become more significant in the supporting of hospices, we could also see: 

  • Clear boundaries for those volunteers working in patient-facing roles. 
  • Extend the supervision of volunteers in patient-facing working roles too. 
  • There should be common applications for approaches that sustain volunteer practice safely.

Promoting excellence in the future

There is a belief that investing volunteers and voluntary management can push more volunteers to contribute more, and we have to agree. We find volunteer management systems (whether it’s our own or others) helps build up communication, and a relationship between organisation and volunteer. In turn, this encourages the volunteer to volunteer more.

In the future, hospice models could look towards changing models and programmes that, while might be working now, could become unsustainable with increasing pressure. Therefore, more innovation is needed. Hospice UK believes this can start in three core areas…

  • Enabling volunteers to play a full role in the work of the clinical team- working in partnership with clinical colleagues. 
  • Having volunteers contribute to the services and strategy for hospices. They play an important role and should be recognised as the vital connection between hospice and community. 
  • Take new approaches to sustaining and nurturing volunteer contribution through volunteer stewardship…

Exploring new approaches for the future

It’s encouraged that hospices look to experiment with volunteer roles. Like a trial and error process, hospices can learn, evaluate and share their findings to pinpoint the useful roles volunteers can play. There are a number of new approaches which could be taken… 

  • Encouraging new organisation forms of hospice-owned but volunteer-led volunteer services at the end-of-life. Volunteers may be able to organise ways that support their contributions across end-of-life providers. They may be able to bring knowledge and continuity to systems of care. 
  • Volunteers can take on significant roles for helping people, and their carers and families. This can relieve pressure on other providers, who may have other responsibilities to attend to; you can’t have one person in two places at once. 
  • There is a call for extensive research in hospices, in particular hospice volunteering. It can build a base around the effectiveness and economic impact of volunteer-led, volunteer delivered and volunteer enable innovation. 

In conclusion…

It’s known to us now just how important volunteers are for Hospices. There is no doubt that this importance is only going to increase as pressure on hospices increases. Volunteers will continue to be the backbone of hospice services, and more should be done to support volunteering in these circumstances. 

If you’re looking for a volunteer management system, why not sign up for a FREE trial with us! Head over to our website, and set your site up now…