Today, the Unit publishes the report, Lessons Learnt from the inclusion of adult social care in the NHS and Care Volunteer Responders Scheme between June 2023-March 2024, lead-authored by Dr Kalpa Kharicha.

Background

In June 2023, the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) and NHS England (NHSE) expanded the ‘NHS and Care Volunteer Responders’ (NHSCVR) programme to include adult social care (ASC). This built on the NHS Volunteer Responders programme which was set up during the Covid-19 pandemic and successfully recruited 750,000 volunteers. The NHS and Care Volunteer Responders programme (which already existed for health) aimed to increase volunteer numbers and capacity in ASC in England. The original scheme was expanded, with the introduction of new volunteer roles, and promoted to encourage referrals from ASC providers and local authority teams, on top of the existing options. It allowed potential volunteers to be ‘matched’ with referring organisations via a website platform and app. By September 2023, over 30,000 volunteers had registered on NHSCVR. However, a decision was made to close the option for ASC referrals from the end of the financial year 2023-24 due to the low number of referrals for volunteers from ASC.

In addition to the findings summary reproduced here, the authors have produced a summary of learning towards the end of their report (pp.53-55).

Summary of our findings

This report presents the findings of an evaluation of the social care element (ASC referrals, focused roles, and engagement) of the NHS and Care Volunteer Responders programme that ran for 6 months, and not the overarching NHSCVR programme. It presents ‘lessons learnt’ from this period of time, for DHSC and NHSE as commissioners of the programme. The work in this report forms part of a wider study and focuses on the second of three research questions addressed in the broader work:

What is known from academic and grey literature about volunteering in adult social care during and post Covid-19?
What lessons can be learnt from ASC engagement with the NHSCVR scheme between June 2023 – March 2024?
What is meaningful volunteer involvement in ASC from the perspectives of key informants from diverse providers?

Mixed methods were used. Thirty-nine individuals with diverse views and experiences of adult social care (n=11), volunteer involvement (n=21), or both (n=7) were interviewed, of whom 15 had engaged (consulted, promoted, referred or volunteered) with the NHSCVR programme to different degrees. Quantitative data from NHSCVR on adult social care referrers, volunteers, and volunteer activity between 1st June 2023 – 31st January 2024 was analysed. Data was shared with us by the Royal Voluntary Service (RVS) in line with a Data Sharing Agreement.

Overall, the findings show the intrinsic complexity of volunteer involvement in adult social care settings, and the need to properly account for potential regulatory and safeguarding concerns, before the perceived benefits of volunteering could be considered.

Several reasons for low engagement from adult social care with the NHS and Care Volunteer Responders programme were identified.

First, the consultation and roll-out of communication with adult social care and existing volunteer-involving organisations was considered to be too late to meaningfully reflect the diversity of adult social care providers, service users, and existing volunteering initiatives, in the programme.

Secondly, the NHS and Care Volunteer Responders website/app was deemed to be health and emergency response focused, in appearance and content, although it continued to evolve over the course of the study. The language used to describe volunteer roles required explanation and was thought to be a deterrent to referrers. Uncertainty as to whether a task had been completed due to the reporting mechanism on the website/app was a key concern for potential referrers. The registration process for digitally literate volunteers appeared to work, given the high number of volunteers who registered, but feedback from volunteers on this process was limited.

Thirdly, the NHS and Care Volunteer Responder roles were a narrow representation of the volunteering potential in adult social care. The transactional rather than relational nature of roles was perceived as a better fit for the NHS and volunteers looking for flexible and short-term volunteering. The planned volunteer roles specifically targeted to adult social care providers and service users (allowing volunteers to enter beneficiary’s homes or to undertake activities in care homes) only reached, a short-lived, pilot stage and were not rolled out nationally.

The NHS and Care Volunteer Responder scheme led to an increase in potential volunteer support for adult social care providers and service users. The number of volunteers registered on the NHSCVR platform, following its relaunch in June 2023, remained high and increased to over 32,000 by the end of January 2024.

Within the low numbers of referrals from adult social care, the vast majority were from local authority community care teams. This suggests that the NHS and Care Volunteer Responders programme was better suited to diverting referrals for overstretched Voluntary, Community and Social Enterprise (VSCE) services and signposting to volunteer support, than adding capacity to adult social care providers.

Views on training and support differed. Representatives of strategic ASC organisations, (who had less direct experience of the platform), considered the online training and telephone support available to volunteers to be insufficient given the potential complexity of adult social care service users. Regional telephone support was reported to be well used by volunteers, according to NHSCVR partners. The absence of local volunteer support was considered a shortcoming by strategic ASC and volunteer-involving organisations, and concerns were raised that this role would fall to paid ASC staff.

The perceived impacts on service users were modest. The Check In and Chat roles were welcomed but overlapped with existing offers from volunteer involving organisations which had a better ability to ‘match’ volunteers and beneficiaries based on additional criteria, like shared interests. The short-term nature of all NHSCVR roles requires robust processes for onward referral or signposting to other services. The potential for volunteering support as a useful addition to the preventative health and care agenda was raised.

The NHS and Care Volunteer Responders programme was an opportunity for social care recipients and the workforce to benefit from volunteer involvement, like their counterparts in health. However, further time and resources were needed to allow the programme to engage with adult social providers and embed with existing local voluntary provision and social care providers’ modes of working, amongst other competing priorities.

This publication

Kharicha, K., Owen, J., Norrie, C., Leverton, M., Burch, T., & Hickman, B. (2025) Lessons Learnt from the inclusion of adult social care in the NHS and Care Volunteer Responders Scheme between June 2023-March 2024, London: NIHR Policy Research Unit in Health and Social Care Workforce, The Policy Institute, King's College London.

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