Thank you to our amazing volunteers who dedicate their time to UHDB
Today, 1 June, marks the start of National Volunteers’ week and as ever on behalf of the Trust, we are forever grateful for our volunteers contribution and support to our hospitals.
Here at UHDB we have more than 610 volunteers and have actively restored over 220 volunteers back into the Trust across our five sites.
We also have volunteers who support across the League of Friends, Blood Bikes, Derby and Burton Hospitals Charity, Macmillan and other voluntary groups.
All volunteers play a vital role in helping both patients and members of staff, whether that is pointing them in the right direction and reassuring them it’s only a few more steps to the outpatient clinic or making a cup of coffee for a nurse who is approaching their twelfth hour on shift.
It might be that a patient hasn’t had a visitor for a few weeks and a volunteer can be there to lend a listening ear and a light-hearted joke.
Or perhaps they have arranged the clinic notes into chronological order or delivered a controlled prescription to the ward that is needed urgently.
There are many more things that volunteers do so well, too many to list, but it is because of these reasons that being a volunteer is valued so highly and the level of service provided to our patients would not be the same without them.
Volunteering also offers the volunteers great benefits. One volunteer at Queen’s Hospital Burton said: “I’ve made a lot of friends at the hospital having volunteered in various departments over the past seven years.”
While another happy volunteer who works at Sir Robert Peel Community Hospital in Tamworth, said: “I’ve enjoyed having that motivation again to get ready and come and help support people which I’ve really missed over the last year.”
Volunteering is about not only making a difference but also about enriching opportunities for people from all backgrounds to come together and help to support their local communities.
In the words of volunteer Sherry Anderson: “Volunteers don’t get paid, not because they are worthless, but because they’re priceless.”