There are over 72,000 volunteers in the NHS, and many more in health-related charities. Volunteering is a meaningful way to support the NHS while also getting involved in your local community and developing your skills.

Become an NHS volunteer

The NHS Volunteering website lists volunteering roles from more than 250 organisations. You can explore opportunities in your area and find out about what to expect as an NHS volunteer.

Benefits of becoming an NHS Volunteer

As referenced in the 10 Year Health Plan, volunteers play an important role in helping the NHS deliver health and care. They work alongside skilled staff as valued partners – not as substitutes.

There are many different types of volunteer roles across the NHS, offering flexible and rewarding opportunities for people of all ages and backgrounds. Some roles are one-off, such as supporting fundraising events or community activities, and others are longer term.

Volunteering can help you build confidence, develop new skills, and make a genuine difference to people’s experiences of care.

How to get involved

There are a range of ways to volunteer depending on your interests and availability.

You can support your local hospital or ambulance trust in roles such as:

• ward support
• administration
• fundraising
• patient participation groups
• foundation trust governor

Ambulance trusts also offer opportunities, including patient transport services roles and community first responder roles, who provide support and reassurance while an ambulance is on the way.

Many voluntary sector organisations that work alongside the NHS also offer volunteering roles that help enhance patient experience and support staff.

Details on how to apply and current opportunities are available through the NHS Volunteering website.

Volunteering for Health

Volunteering for Health aims to create the conditions within local health systems for volunteering to thrive. It will test and build volunteering infrastructure, through collaboration of statutory and voluntary, community and social enterprises partners, empowering communities to improve health and wellbeing in ways that matter most to local people.

The programme, delivered in partnership with NHS Charities Together, CW+ and NHS England, is funding 15 partnerships across England.

NHS volunteer workforce data collection

The NHS volunteer workforce data collection has been mandatory for all NHS trusts since April 2024. It is a collection of metrics that aim to understand the number of volunteers, the number of hours volunteers contribute and equalities data about those volunteers that aligns with workforce data.

Access further information about the collection and the latest published data.