Covid volunteering surge can be ‘positive legacy’ for NHS in future
ITV News Correspondent Nitya Rajan has the story 81-year-old May Hamilton who has been volunteering during the pandemic
According to NHS England, 436,000 people from the NHS Volunteer Responders programme have carried out nearly two million tasks for those who had to stay at home during the Covid crisis.
One of those volunteers is 81-year-old May Hamilton from Southend who has been driving patients to their appointment.
New research from the London School of Economics and Political Science found Volunteering for the NHS during the pandemic felt as good as getting a £1,800 bonus from work.
For May, it's about more than that. She told ITV News it "works both ways".
"Now I'm on my own, I have to have a reason to get up in the mornings - and I've got a reason, that I'm helping people,.
"The patients all say to me 'oh this is a lovely service, we're so pleased to have it'.
"But us as drivers are so pleased to be able to do it, because we know we're helping other people - it works both ways"
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LSE's study found volunteering provided a significant improvement in quality of life equivalent to around a third of that from being in a relationship and a quarter of having a job.
They also found the various volunteering schemes organised throughout the pandemic were exceedingly cost-effective, providing a benefit around 140 tiumes greater than the cost.
This included phone calls to the isolated, delivering medicines, and stewarding Covid vaccination sites.
NHS England said a further 74,000 people signed up to support the NHS vaccination programme launched on New Year’s Day, with volunteer stewards so far racking up 387,000 hours of support.
The figures are released as the NHS converts Twickenham rugby stadium in south-west London into the “biggest vaccination centre in England” – staffed with the help of volunteers.
An additional 27,000 volunteers were recruited by St John Ambulance and more than a million people have also volunteered for Covid-19 research programmes, NHS England said.
Ruth May, chief nursing officer for England said: “There is no doubt that everyone who has stepped up during the pandemic has helped us to save countless lives.”
Thanking volunteers, she added: “As we work now to recover services and focus again on our priorities for improving care, it’s vital that we continue to provide those flexible opportunities for people to support those efforts when they are able, using the innovative approach during Covid as a positive legacy of the pandemic and a blueprint for the future.”
Professor Paul Dolan, from the Department of Psychological and Behavioural Science at LSE, said the NHS Volunteer Responders programme was “the largest mobilisation of pro-social action in the UK” since the end of the Second World War.
He adding: “Its success shows just how good helping other people can feel.
“We could take the lessons and impacts from this programme as a model for a National Volunteering System.”