Volunteering

We welcome volunteers to St George’s University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust as a way of involving local people in the day-to-day running of our services and offering them the opportunity to contribute to patient care in ways which may not be available through the conventional NHS.

If you would like to volunteer your time and skills, we would be delighted to hear from you.

Below are some details about the services with which volunteers can become involved:

  • Wayfinders – directing and escorting patients and their visitors around the site
  • Basic clerical and admin tasks
  • Emergency Department
  • Cancer Services
  • Spiritual Care – To work in partnership with the Chaplains to provide high quality spiritual, pastoral and faith-based care to patients, relatives and staff members.

However, volunteers are not here to replace salaried staff – volunteers complement and supplement our services, they do not supplant them.

Patient Partners

As well as recruiting volunteers who assist in the delivery of services, we are also looking for patient partners, these are also volunteers but the time they contribute to the Trust is used to develop and transform services.

Patient Partners get involved and in specific projects to improve services using their skills and experience as patients and work in partnership with staff.

Patient Assessors

We also recruit volunteers who carry out inspections across the Trust, there are weekly departmental inspections and much larger annual inspections involving multiple areas and the hospital environment.

Engagement network

If you would like to be informed regarding patient engagement activities, events, and any improvement work the Trust are developing, but do not want to volunteer at this time, let us know.  We can add you to our engagement network and give you updates on Trust developments via emails throughout the year.

If you would like to become a member of the St George’s Engagement Network, please email patientexperienceevents@stgeorges.nhs.uk

How can I find out more?

Visit the How to Apply page to access an application form.

To be a volunteer, you need to be over 18 years of age, living within the local area and be available for a minimum of three hours a week, for at least six months – mainly office hours, Monday – Friday.

We do provide assistance with local travel expenses and refreshment tokens are supplied within certain criteria for our volunteers.

Why volunteer?

  • You will meet other interesting people of all ages and backgrounds and make new friends
  • You will be part of a team and learn new skills
  • It can help improve your job-seeking opportunities, while you do something worthwhile and useful
  • It can contribute to your personal development
  • And you will also know that you are making an important contribution to your local community

There is often some confusion between work experience and Volunteering. Volunteering is giving something back to the local community and involves a regular commitment of time. It is not a structured learning programme and you will not be shadowing and assisting staff, and will not be rotating regularly between departments. However you are likely to get a good feel of how a Hospital works. For work experience please follow this link – work experience

All Volunteer roles are non clinical and new roles are being developed all the time so keep checking our Current Vacancies page for new roles that might be of interest to you.