Ever since the NHS was formed, the League of Friends has been a practical demonstration of Aneurin Bevan’s proclaimed mission for volunteers “Watch to see where the shoe pinches first … and if the nation cannot do it, there your voluntary services will be required”.

For over three-quarters of a century, Hospital Friends Groups have faithfully stepped up to this challenge, without seeking recognition or praise, just with a desire to support the lives of patients and former patients of their local hospitals.

Here’s a wonderful story telling what these committed folks continue to do. It’s about the transformation of an open space, into a tranquil wellbeing path. The path is accessible for anyone who uses a wheelchair, crutches or a walking frame, and provides an area of relaxation and reflection for staff, patients and their loved ones.

It was an inspired idea of one of the hospital’s Therapy Associate Practitioners, and funded by NHS Charities together. As you read the article there is a nod to the support from the hospital’s League of Friends – but their role was key to developing the idea into a fundable project with the Hospital Charity, and then making the funding application to NHS Charities Together. Quietly, behind the scenes, demonstrating the support of the local community to secure the resources to bringing this idea to an inspirational reality.

I haven’t asked for permission to shine the light on the role of the Friends, as the answer might be “no”! But someone needs to flag up that these Friends Groups are living examples of  the central principle that “The NHS Belongs to the People”.

In celebration of International Volunteer Day, I’ve been sitting underneath an apple tree hoping for an unexpected moment of inspiration. It arrived courtesy of a groundbreaking new study from the Chartered Management Institute (CMI) in partnership with YouGov.

Finally, we have a way of improving volunteer retention for your volunteering programmes. Keep your volunteers away from 82% of your managers!

The report reveals that 82% of managers who enter management positions have not had any proper management and leadership training – they are ‘accidental managers’.

…and this lack of training reduces productivity, increases staff turnover, and makes staff feel less valued, disengaged and unappreciated.

One of the central findings is that these untrained managers are promoted into management positions simply because they are popular, good at their job, or happen to be available to take charge.

This landmark study has revealed for the first time the scale of damage being caused to the UK economy by the lack of training within Britain’s managerial ranks. The results suggest that only 18% of managers have a deep positive impact on employees, including on their motivation, satisfaction, and retention.

So, what has this got to do with volunteer management?

It’s widely accepted that most people who manage volunteers are ‘accidental volunteer managers’, with little training tailored to managing volunteers. Many have experienced volunteers being thrust on them at times of organisational change, or that their first experience of managing volunteers was a by-product of a personal promotion opportunity.

What then is the damage caused by untrained ‘accidental volunteer managers’ to the UK volunteering economy? Organisations perceived as unwelcoming by volunteers, ‘stressy’ volunteering placements, difficulty in keeping good volunteers, disillusioned management teams, damage to the organisation’s reputation in the wider community, and ultimately delivering an impoverished service for beneficiaries.

So what should we do?

In response to the research, Ann Francke OBE, the CEO of the CMI, said “By investing in management, the UK has the opportunity to set a positive trajectory that can deliver a growing economy, invigorated public services and a healthy, inclusive society driven by good management and leadership.”

Applied to volunteer management?  Invest in training tailored to ‘accidental volunteer managers’ to create a healthy, inclusive society.

If the lessons of this study are applied to volunteer management, those who have received formal training are substantially more likely to feel confident in their volunteer managerial abilities, being significantly more likely to trust their team, feeling comfortable leading change initiatives, and feeling comfortable addressing issues that need addressing.

So where can we get this tailored training for ‘accidental volunteer managers’? At this point I was considering a shameless plug of Attend’s ‘Managing Volunteers for Line Managers’ courses, but that would be too crass for a blog inspired by Isaac Newton!

Following on from the previous post’s criticism of NHS England and the DHSC’s approach to researching volunteering in the NHS, this piece seeks to find a way forward. A way that embraces the best of organisational cultures and promotes working relationships. A way that generates light rather than heat.

This proposal is based on a number of premises:

• Everyone is working hard and committed to providing the best service possible for their beneficiaries. NHS staff & volunteers, voluntary sector staff & volunteers and policy makers alike.
• All public sector and voluntary sector organisations want to have positive relationships with each other.
• The greatest value is gained by exploring and celebrating what is working well, rather than what is not.

So, what to investigate? Where is the pinch point, where the secrets of what is working well can be discovered?

The answer might be found back in 1948, where the then Minister of Health, Aneurin Bevan said to those who had volunteered to support health care before the NHS was formed: “Watch to see where the shoe pinches first … and if the nation cannot do it, there your voluntary services will be required”

This would suggest achieving best value for this research, would be to look at where the shoe pinches: the point where public sector and voluntary sector services touch each other.

…but no-one who is working hard to support the NHS wants to have an intrusive investigation, with the associated negative connotations of accountability associated with it. So maybe the research piece needs to give everyone a break, and help to support what they do want.

They would love to have:

• A celebration of what they are currently doing well in working in partnership.
• Lots of ideas and tips from similar organisations to improve things.

For example, one outcome would be case studies of great partnership working, ones that the organisations involved can be proud of, and others can be inspired by…. creating an organic evolution of partnership working, that aligns with the principle of ‘spontaneous order’, which is so fundamental to the voluntary sector.

A research methodology that would help to achieve this is ‘Appreciative Inquiry’ that poses a central question ‘When have things gone really well what can we learn and apply from those moments of success?’.

NHS staff & volunteers, voluntary sector staff & volunteers and policy makers – who wouldn’t want this?

The links between primary and secondary care and the Voluntary Sector are key here, and this is where the Voluntary, Community and Social Enterprise (VCSE) Health and Wellbeing Alliance offers some potential. However, if you look at the partners, the voluntary sector organisations that are linked to hospitals are largely missing. Once this is resolved this piece of research offers significant value to so many.

Let there be volunteer management!

One winters day in 1963 at Fulbourne Hospital in Cambridgeshire, an unspecified number of cloak-clad senior managers huddled around a dimly lit NHS desk-lamp, and decided to advertise a post for a paid voluntary services organiser…

So voluntary services were henceforth organised. But sometimes they needed managing, other times they needed to be led, and on frequent occasions needed to be supported and negotiated.

Someone decided that the people doing the voluntary services organising/management/leading/supporting/negotiating needed some training to do all these things, and this decision begat many training courses. Most course outlines started life as notes on napkins, beermats, the back of cigarette packets. The course outlines begat trainers and the trainers begat lots of delivery to any volunteer manager could get their organisation to fund a day’s training for them.

Let there be volunteer management qualifications!

Then in 2005, someone said “Where are the accredited training programmes for people who manage volunteers?”. There was much tumbleweed, and no-one responded…

… until a consortium led by Attend liaised with the CIPD (Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development), to tailor the Certificate in Personnel Practice, for people managing volunteers.

In parallel to this, Skills Third Sector were developing the National Occupational Standards for Volunteer Managers, which were adopted by the Institute of Leadership and Management (now ILM), who developed a suite of accredited programmes, just for volunteer management.  In the words of Sue Jones (Warrington Voluntary Action) “there was something special about volunteer management being part of ILM. It felt grown-up, like we were finally sitting at the main table, rather than being on the sidelines, sitting at the camping table with the kids.”

There were accredited programmes designed for people managing volunteers on a day-to-day basis, and for those managing volunteering programmes, and these were delivered all over everywhere. Volunteer Management was now being recognised by awarding bodies, employers and funders as credible and worth the investment.

…and then all of a sudden they weren’t. Government funding dried up, and employers decided the programmes were not so attractive if funding them came from their own budgets!

So the ILM, seeing the reduction in registrations started withdrawing ‘unviable’ programmes from their portfolio, and today the only one left is the Level 3 Award in the Management of Volunteers – the shortest of their programmes. The Level 4 and 5 programmes now sit destined to gathering e-dust in the forgotten clouds.

So, here we go again… in 2019, Attend liaised with the CMI (Chartered Management Institute), to tailor the Level 5 Certificate in Management and Leadership, for people managing volunteers. The sector once again has a nationally accredited qualification tailored for those managing volunteering programmes.

Maybe that’s where volunteer management needs to sit? As part of a mainstream national management and leadership qualification, where folks can obtain a qualification recognised by employers, tailored to volunteer management, and transferable to the wider world of work, thus future proofing the careers of those who study and pass the programme.

…maybe this approach might be more attractive to those holding the purse strings of staff development budgets!

In June this year Dr Neil Churchill, Director for People and Communities at NHS England blogged about the need to invest more in NHS volunteering to reap the benefits for patients, staff and the volunteers.

The Department of Health and Social Care and NHS England periodically fund research and discuss volunteering in the NHS. However, the focus tends to be on directly managed volunteers in a hospital setting, rather than volunteering in a wider health setting, with direct and indirect links to the NHS.

Dr Churchill’s blog and the associated report also adopt this approach. However, one can’t help feeling that something is missing…

The people…over 3 million of them!

So, there are a few hundred thousand volunteers in England who are managed by hospital volunteer managers, but according to the Department of Health’s Strategic Vision for Volunteering, “around 3.4 million people volunteer in health alone”, indicating the vast majority of volunteering within the NHS happens within independent organisations that support the work of the NHS.

For example, local hospital friends groups, who between them have 25,000-35,000 volunteers and 10 times that number of supporters in the community.

So, NHS related research and conversations tend to studiously ignore the bigger picture. Why is this?

• Unaware? Is it because the DHSC and NHS England are not aware that the majority of volunteering in health and social care happens within independent organisations that support the work of the NHS?
• Too difficult? Is researching the many and diverse ways in which 3.4 million volunteers contribute to the work of the NHS too complex for the researchers, or that they haven’t got access to these volunteering networks?
• Too expensive? Would researching this vast field of volunteering cost too much money?
• Can’t see the point? Is it that NHS staff feel they have enough volunteers for the roles that can exist within a hospital setting, and that there is no vision or appetite for engaging the wider community?
• Is it political (small ‘p’)? Is it because this volunteering is part of the wider community and cannot be controlled with the same rules… and that the research findings are likely to point to a need for a different, more nuanced approach to volunteer engagement, which is not within the skills set of many NHS staff?

Whatever the reason, the research hasn’t been done and steadfastly continues not to be done. This is a travesty, when one considers the first line of the NHS constitution is:“The NHS belongs to the people.”

Any volunteering strategy needs to create a climate where people can help where they can, and it’s the role of NHS organisations to engage the community first, and manage volunteers second.

To date however, none of the published research focuses on the first ‘strategy’ of community engagement. It focuses on the second ‘tactic’ of managing volunteers. Ever since hospitals set up their own volunteering programmes in the mid 1960s, it appears the horse has followed the cart, and keeps following the cart. It’s tactics without strategy, which according to Sun Tzu,  is “The noise before defeat“.

So, after the positive public response to the NHS during the Covid-19 pandemic, we have an opportunity to get this right. Someone, somewhere in the NHS needs to get this, and explore how to engage the community first and manage volunteers second.

For example, this could take the form of researching where community engagement works well in particular parts of the NHS. There could be exploration of instances where independent organisations and hospitals work well together, and what makes this work well, like a MoU they have worked on between them.

We just need to see what good looks like and then share this to the people (the managers, the staff, the volunteers, the community groups, the press, the politicians and the wider public). The NHS belongs to all these people …