Funding for health volunteers

The Cabinet Office has announced the recipients of funding from two projects working with health volunteers, including two charities and a hospital in the East Midlands.

A £2million project entitled Reducing Winter Pressures Fund will support eight charities to help volunteers working with elderly people during the winter. In addition, £600,000 funding from the £14million Innovation Fund will support volunteer projects in six hospitals.

The Reducing Winter Pressures Fund will be used run projects to help the elderly stay healthy and to quickly recover from illnesses and avoid unnecessary pressure on A&E services and delayed discharges from hospitals.

The money comes from a partnership between the Cabinet Office and the National Tripartite, a group set up to work on local improvement plans for A&E standards.

The £600,000 funds will be given to six hospitals through the Helping in Hospitals’ programme, and will be used to grow existing volunteer schemes that work on improving overall patient satisfaction and outcomes.

The funding comes as part of a commitment by both the Government and NHS England to support innovative solutions to help ease the pressure on A&E and other services, particularly around busy periods.

So far there are seven confirmed organisations that will receive funding through the Reducing Winter Pressures Fund including Royal Voluntary Service, based in Leicestershire, and the British Red Cross Society, based in North Derbyshire.

The hospitals that will receive funding as part of Helping in Hospitals programme, include Derbyshire Community Health Services NHS Trust.