Volunteers’ Week 2019
June 2, 2019
To celebrate Volunteers’ Week, we will be showcasing our volunteer service throughout the week.
Our volunteer service will be hosting a variety of awareness events across our sites to celebrate Volunteers’ Week. The events aim to raise the profile of volunteering and will give colleagues the opportunity to find out how a volunteer could help them in their ward or department. Please see below for more information or email swbh.volunteer@nhs.net.
- Wednesday 5 June: 10am – 2pm, entertainment from Bristnall Hall School at Birmingham Treatment Centre, City Hospital
- Thursday 6 June: 5.30pm – 7.30pm, volunteer appreciation awards evening at Sandwell Education Centre
- Friday 7 June: 11.30am – 2pm, entertainment at Sandwell Hospital (main reception)
How can a volunteer support your service?
Our volunteers’ service have continued to play a vital part in supporting loved ones of patients in both critical care and theatres at Sandwell. In March, we introduced the critical care liaison volunteer role to act as a bridge between ward and theatre colleagues and the friends and families of patients in either critical care or theatres.
This new volunteer project has been spearheaded by Patricia Hunt, volunteer service manager who is delighted with its initial progress.
She said: “The programme only launched at the back end of March and we have already had a fantastic interest and uptake. With seven volunteers already in place at Sandwell who are absolutely enjoying their volunteering in critical care and theatres, we will definitely have to think about expanding this particular role across Sandwell and eventually to City.”
Heartbeat recently caught up with Nazia Aktar, who is one of the first theatre and critical care liaison volunteers to find out about her first couple of months in this role.
What Challenges do you face in critical care?
“Critical care can be a very face paced environment with many staff attending to a variety of patients. This means that there are also quite a lot of visitors so it can be a little difficult at times to build a real rapport with a small number of people who visit the patients especially as it can be a highly stressful situation for them”
How do you feel about volunteering in critical care?
“The critical care liaison role has allowed me to gain confidence in speaking to people who I don’t know but more importantly, working in critical care means you build resilience over time and get stronger emotionally which is quite important when doing this kind of volunteering role.”
What do you enjoy most about volunteering in critical care?
“I enjoy this role very much as it is a great way to give back whilst learning new things. Volunteering makes you feel good about yourself but this role in particular makes me feel I’m making a huge difference even if I’m just acting as a point of contact.”
Why are you volunteering in critical care?
“For me personally it’s for the experience and to enhance my CV whilst learning new skills. On top of this I find volunteering in critical care very rewarding.”