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We're proud that the Trust is a great place to volunteer.
Current opportunities
Apply to be a volunteer
Learn what the Trust offers, how to apply and where to find support.
In this section:
Patient and Carer Experience Volunteer - Inpatient and Forensic Services
Tea and Coffee Bar Volunteer (Blossomwood, Mansfield)
Care Dog Volunteer (Various Locations)
Horticulture Volunteer
Volunteer Visitor - Rampton Hospital and Arnold Lodge
Conversation Partner
Patient and Carer Feedback Support Volunteer (with BSL Level 2 qualification) - Rampton Hospital
Patient Experience Volunteer - Inpatient (Mental Health and Forensic Services)
Role Purpose:
The volunteer role for patient experience is to support the hospital in obtaining feedback from patients, service users and carers regarding the experience that they have as a patient (or family member, carer) of Nottinghamshire Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust.
Details of this opportunity
Key Tasks:
Patient experience activities would include:-
- To support the Involvement Team at feedback sessions, promotions, feedback projects and events across Trust sites.
- Attend a ward or outpatient area and approach service users, families or carers.
- Engage service users, carers and families, striking up a friendly rapport with them and encouraging them to share their feedback.
- Gather feedback using iPads, mobile devices and/or paper forms.
- Providing informal support to service users, patients and their families/carers whilst taking part in the survey, explaining questions and listening carefully to their feedback.
- To assist people who may need support to post their feedback who may not be unable to access technology.
- Work with the Involvement Experience and Volunteering (IEV) Team to understand the views and experiences of service users, carers and families and share any concerning trends .
- When appropriate, signpost people to the PALS and Complaints Team or service manager where issues are shared which warrant immediate intervention.
- To explain how feedback is used by services and the difference it can make.
A full role description including skills required can be found here Patient and Carer Feedback Support Volunteer
Location(s):
- Blossom Wood (Mansfield) - previously Millbrook Hospital
- Wells Road Medium Secure Unit (Mapperley, Nottingham)
- Mental Health Services for Older People (MHSOP) - (Highbury)
Important information:
Interviews in person will be held at our office in Mapperley, Nottingham. If you are successful at interview stage you will be expected to attend training for the role taking place on Friday 10 January 2025. Please email us volunteering@nottshc.nhs.uk before applying for this role if you are unable to attend this training date.
Tea and Coffee Bar Volunteer, (Blossom Wood, Mansfield)
Role Purpose
As a Tea/Coffee Bar Volunteer, you will play a vital role in providing a welcoming environment and excellent service to patients, hospital staff, and visitors. Your commitment to regular volunteering, typically one or two shifts per week, for a minimum of 12 months, ensures continuity and reliability in service delivery.
Details of this opportunity
Key Tasks:
Warm Hospitality:
- Provide a friendly and welcoming atmosphere to all visitors of the tea bar.
- Customer Service:
- Treat all individuals with respect and courtesy at all times, ensuring their needs are met promptly and efficiently.
- Cash Handling:
- Ensure accurate accounting of cash transactions at the end of each shift, following established procedures for banking.
Click here for a full role description including skills required: Tea Bar Volunteer (PDF Form) (opens in new window)
Location:
- Blossom Wood Mental Health Unit, Mansfield (previously Millbrook Mental Health Unit)
Time Commitment:
- To be negotiated with the Volunteering Services team and Placement Officer but typically one or two shifts per week, for a minimum of 12 months, ensures continuity and reliability in service delivery.
Care Dog Volunteer (Various locations)
Role purpose
Under the guidance of the Volunteering Services and in partnership with clinical staff, the Care Dog Volunteer will provide an opportunity for patients to meet a registered dog and to engage in one-to-one and/or group contact in a safe environment with the aim to improve the wellbeing of patients and improve their experiences through positive interaction with visiting volunteers and their dogs.
Details of this opportunity
Key tasks:
As a Care Dog Volunteer, you will be asked to
- Conduct each visit in a professional, competent and caring manner.
- Always clean up after your dog
- Ensure visiting dog is clean and groomed before each visit.
- Ensure visiting dog is up to date with worming, flea treatments and vaccinations.
- Ensure visiting dog is on a lead at all times throughout each visit.
- Refrain from visiting if unwell or if dog is unwell.
- Comply with all rules and regulations of the hospital/unit visited.
- Sign in/out of the visitors log at the facility for each visit.
- Protect the privacy of the patients and refrain from developing relationships with them outside of your volunteer role.
- To be guided by the clinical staff team on appropriate activities for patients.
- Supervises, instructs, encourages and interacts with patients as they participate.
- Alerts clinical staff to any issues of concern.
- Welcomes any patients/staff.
- Provide dog activities and support where necessary.
As a Care Dog Volunteer, you will not be asked to
- Provide Personal care such as assisting patients with the toilet.
- Deal with complaints and incidents
- Move and handle patients or non-patient heavy items.
All duties will be carried out under the supervision/guidance of clinical staff and will never include tasks of a clinical and/or therapeutic nature.
A full role description can be found here Care Dog Volunteer (PDF Form - opens in new window)
Location(s):
- Adult Mental Health, MHSOP - Sherwood Oaks, Mansfield
- Arnold Lodge - Leicester
- IDD Services - Orion Unit - Highbury
- CAMHS Community Services - Balderton PCC and Langold Clinic
- Dementia Assessment Ward - Blossomwood, Mansfield
Time Commitment:
To be negotiated with Volunteering Services and staff from placement unit.
Horticulture Volunteer
This role is to assist staff with cultivating/maintaining of Nottinghamshire Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust's green areas both outdoors and under glass. These green areas serve many purposes for the trust, our staff, patients and volunteers. They can be used to grow good, nutritious food to be used in the hospital kitchens. They are also used to offer a calming, therapeutic environment for the service users and somewhere off unit where they can sit and relax. This role may also involve motivating and enabling patients to become involved in tasks.
Key Tasks:
- Maintaining the Garden
- Engaging with Service users and staff
- Creating a therapeutic outdoor space
- Reporting health and safety issues
A full role description including skills required can be found here: Horticultural Volunteer(PDF Form) (opens in new window)
Location:
- Ashfield Wellbeing Centre, Kirkby (Tuesdays - 11 - 12.30pm)
- Highbury Hospital, Nottingham (Mondays - 1 - 3.30pm)
Time Commitment
- Two hours per week for a minimum of six months.
Volunteer Visitor - Rampton Hospital and Arnold Lodge
Make a difference and become a Volunteer Visitor.
Rampton Hospital (high secure) and Arnold Lodge (medium secure) are always looking for enthusiastic people to volunteer their time as a visitors
Our Volunteer visitor scheme is patient centred and gives priority to patients who have little or no contact with the outside world. Lack of social contact can lead to patients feeling isolated and lonely. O ur Volunteer Visitor Service fills that gap and helps patients to connect with people outside of the hospital, gives them a feeling of worth and makes a huge different to their life at the hospital.
Role Description:
We are looking to recruit enthusiastic, empathic, caring people to volunteer their time and become part of its volunteer visitor scheme. Our scheme is patient centred and gives priority to patients who have little or no contact with the outside world.
Our volunteers bring their skills, their knowledge, and a desire to make a difference to our services and the lives of the patients we care for. We train, support, and develop our volunteers so they can play a meaningful and valuable role.
We hear stories every week from our volunteers themselves, and from the staff and patients they work with, about the incredible difference volunteers make to people's lives. We are proud of our volunteers and the enormous contribution they make.
We're looking for people who want to help us deliver the best care we can to our patients. It's always useful if you have a relevant skill (for example you're a good listener, you have previous experience of supporting vulnerable people, or you are a keen gardener or musician) because everyone has something unique, they can offer.
Could you be a Volunteer Visitor?
The role of the volunteer visitor is 'to bring the outside in!', to act as a social visitor and spend time talking with a patient in a high secure hospital. Exploring hobbies, interests and be a consistent visitor or letter writer.
All social visits at the hospital are supervised and visits can be on-site or Videocall (via the Purple Visit App). Full training will be provided, and travel expenses are paid.
Criteria and your commitment
- You must be over 18 and there is a commitment of one hour minimum per month, per patient will be required (a maximum of three patients).
- Ideally you will have some understanding of mental health issues, intellectual and developmental disabilities (learning disabilities) or substance misuse issues.
- You will be required to participate in an initial Induction course and there will be ongoing e-training and training courses and ongoing supervision/support.
- Have IT skills to enable access to on-line learning.
- Ability to cope with locked doors, rules and regulations and discreet observation of visit by ward staff.
- Able to accept role boundaries.
- Emotionally mature.
- Compassionate and empathetic
- Reliable & trustworthy.
- Excellent listening skills.
- Sensitive and tactful nature.
- We are actively seeking a Volunteer Visitor, particularly welcoming applications from transgender individuals (male-female) and those with at least a Level 2 qualification in British Sign Language (BSL).
A more detailed role description can be found here (Printable) (opens in new window)
What will we provide for you?
- Supervision and support from a member of staff
- Induction to Nottinghamshire Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust.
- Specific training for the role.
- On-going up-dates and information.
- Reimbursement of travel expenses.
- Volunteer discounts and benefits
- References can be provided after six months of volunteering
- The opportunity to work towards a recognised 'National Volunteering Certificate' provided by NHS Health Education England.
Location
- Rampton Hospital, DN22 0PD
- Arnold Lodge, Leicester
We are very proud of our volunteers and the enormous contribution they make. We hear stories every week from them, and from the colleagues and patients they work with, about the incredible difference volunteers make to people's lives. Could you be our next volunteer Visitor?
For more information:
Rampton Hospital: For more information on becoming a volunteer befriender, you can contact our Family and Volunteer Support Service by emailing: FamilyandVolunteerServiceRH@nottshc.nhs.uk or telephone: 01777 247336. You can also find out more information by watching this film.
Arnold Lodge: Click here to find out more information and to apply.
You can also find out more information by watching this film.
Conversation Partner
The Conversation Partner scheme is operated by the Community Speech & Language Therapy team for people with acquired speech/ language difficulties. Each person has a different set of speech and language difficulties; these can include slurred speech, which is hard to understand, comprehension problems (so that it is hard for patients to make sense of spoken speech and/ or written text) and expressive difficulties (including problems with finding words, constructing sentences, writing, and spelling). People with acquired speech and language difficulties are visited in their own homes once a week for support with their communication, accessing opportunities for conversation and social inclusion.
Key Tasks
- Visit people in their own homes or residential unit.
- Provide the person you visit with opportunities for enjoyable conversations.
- A commitment to visit regularly once a week for a minimum for twelve months.
- Pre-visit preparation.
- Completion of regular weekly feedback.
More information about the role including desired skills and experience can be found here: Community Volunteer - Conversation Partner(PDF Form) (opens in new window)
Location:
- To be agreed
Time Commitment
- To be negotiated with the with the Volunteering Services team and staff from the patients care team, but likely to be one a week (ideally one visit per week, with a minimum of one per fortnight).
Important information:
Interviews in person will be held at our office in Mapperley, Nottingham on Wednesday 26th March 2025. If you are successful at interview stage you will be expected to attend training for the role taking place on Wednesday 14th May 2025. Please email us volunteering@nottshc.nhs.uk before applying for this role if you are unable to attend any of this training date.
Patient and Carer Feedback Support Volunteer - Rampton Hospital (Two roles available - please read criteria)
As a Patient & Carer Feedback Support Volunteer, you will play a crucial role in helping Nottinghamshire Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust gather valuable insights and feedback from our stakeholders. Your contributions will directly impact our continuous improvement efforts, allowing us to enhance our services, programs, and overall performance. This volunteer position offers an excellent opportunity to develop communication skills, gain experience in data collection and analysis, and make a positive impact within the community. Please note that there are two roles available, one role is in Deaf Services and therefore BSL Level 2 is essential. The other role is in Women's Services.
Key Tasks:
Patient Forum Support
- Helping set out the room in an agreed layout.
- Preparing and distributing simple refreshments, collecting in and washing items used.
- Welcoming and talking with patients.
- Actively listen and encourage patients to share their opinions, suggestions, and concerns regarding the organization's services, products, or initiatives.
- Providing feedback to staff.
- Tidying up the room after the session.
Feedback Collection Sessions
- Engage service users, carers and families, striking up a friendly rapport with them and encouraging them to share their feedback.
- Gather feedback using devices (such as Purple MDM computer/tablets) or paper forms.
- Providing informal support to service users, patients and their families/carers whilst taking part in the survey, explaining questions and listening carefully to their feedback.
- To assist people who may need support to post their feedback who may not be unable to access technology.
- Work with the Involvement Experience and Volunteering (IEV) Team to understand the views and experiences of service users, carers and families and share any concerning trends.
- When appropriate, signpost people to the PALS and Complaints Team or service manager where issues are shared which warrant immediate intervention.
- To explain how feedback is used by services and the difference it can make.
Divisional Meeting Attendance
- Attend meetings alongside patients and staff at Rampton, meetings will take place virtually via MS Teams
- Participate in meetings and discussions to share feedback findings and contribute to action plans.
- Offer suggestions for enhancing the feedback collection process to make it more efficient and effective.
Criteria
- You must have a minimum British Sign Language Level 2 qualification if you are applying for the role in Deaf Services.
- Good Level of English.
- Ability to strike up rapport in conversation with patients, families and carers
- Non-judgemental attitude.
- A good understanding of professional boundaries.
- Ability to listen attentively.
- Attention to detail and ability to accurately record and document data.
- Experience of volunteering/working within Forensic Mental Health services.
- Excellent communication skills.
- Ability to work on own initiative and as part of a team.
- Willingness to undertake training.
- Commitment to uphold trust core values and NHS policies.
- Understanding the importance of confidentiality and following procedures.
- You must be able to commit to a minimum of 12 months.
for a more detailed role description can be downloaded here: Patient and Carer Feedback Support Volunteer, Rampton (PDF Form) (opens in new window)
Location:
- Rampton Hospital - Please note that Rampton Hospital is in a remote location with limited public transport.
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