Hospital volunteering programme

Nesta has launched Helping in Hospitals, a hospital volunteering programme, with £1.5m from the Innovation Fund run jointly by Nesta and the Cabinet Office Centre for Social Action.

Thw programme coincides with the publication of a new report from the King’s Fund which estimates that every £1 invested in volunteering in the NHS yields services worth £11 in return.

It also comes on the back of a successful pilot at King’s College Hospital, funded by Nesta and the Cabinet Office, to significantly increase the number of volunteers. According to Nesta, applicants responded in their thousands and the hospital now deploys more than 1,000 volunteers a month, up from 150 a year ago.

For further information visit www.nesta.org.uk/project/helping-hospitals.