Humber and North Yorkshire Health and Care Partnership has been awarded a grant as part of Volunteering for Health – a £10 million programme being delivered in partnership by NHS England, NHS Charities Together and CW+, the official charity of Chelsea and Westminster Hospital NHS Foundation Trust.

Volunteering for Health aims to maximise the benefits of volunteers as a vital resource in delivering health and social care nationally and locally, whilst strengthening volunteering infrastructure.

The programme is part of NHS England’s response to the NHS Volunteering Taskforce which brought together health charities, volunteers, clinicians, civil servants and policy makers. The Taskforce published its recommendations in June 2023, concluding that more can be done nationally and locally to maximise the benefits of volunteers and volunteering in the NHS.

Humber and North Yorkshire Health and Care Partnership was one of 15 partnerships across the UK to successfully bid for funding. Partnerships are made up of voluntary, community and social enterprise (VCSE) organisations, NHS Trusts, integrated care boards (ICBs), local authorities (LAs) and NHS charities.

Grants were awarded to applicants who were able to demonstrate how they intended to break down barriers, test new models and develop guidance and best practice that can be shared across the NHS and beyond.

Their aim as a partnership is to enable and embed youth volunteering for all volunteer-involving health and care organisations across the Humber and North Yorkshire Health and Care Partnership by scaling-up existing programmes from their system. One of those key existing programmes are the youth volunteering programmes at Hull University Teaching Hospital (HUTH).

A video they produced as part of the application process can be viewed here.

Gary Sainty, Head of VCSE, Humber and North Yorkshire Integrated Care Board (ICB), said:

“Our partnership working as part of the Humber and North Yorkshire Health and Care Partnership’s Workforce Breakthrough Group: ‘Volunteers at the Heart of the System’ was crucial to the success of our bid by demonstrating our approach to bringing together volunteering champions from across the different areas of our system.

As a partnership we have already generated ambitious ideas and with the Volunteering for Health investment we will work together to bring these to reality and test system-wide and cross-sector approaches that everyone can benefit from.”

The grant will be paid in instalments over the next three years, until the end of June 2027. Humber and North Yorkshire Health and Care Partnership will receive an initial payment for the development phase, with an ambition to begin delivering the programme by March 2025.

The ‘Volunteers at the Heart of the System Group’ will be working with the fund to develop this 3-year long project.

Alison Semmence, CEO of York CVS and lead for the Volunteering at the Heart of the System group commented:

“This is an exciting opportunity for us to increase volunteering across the health and care system and give young people the opportunity to work in these settings.  We know volunteering makes a big difference to volunteers themselves, the people they support and the organisations they volunteer for – everyone wins.”

Rachael Hardcastle-Pearce, Young Health Champions and Voluntary Service Lead for Humber Health Partnership (HUTH), commented:

“We’re delighted that the Volunteers at the Heart of the System bid has been successful and that Humber Health Partnerships (HUTH) youth volunteering programmes were highlighted as an example of good practice to be used as a foundation for this project and to be shared with our wider System and nationally.”

For any questions about this project, please contact the VCSE Team via hnyicb.vcseteam@nhs.net.