Sideways News

The campaigns aims to get people volunteering

The average patient spends just 13 days in a hospice. UK hospices care for around 200,000 people every year, but this care will often filter through to family, friends and colleagues. As a result, the hospice movement touches thousands of people’s lives.

National charity Time Bank, which helps volunteers decide how to give their time, has joined up with Help the Hospices to encourage more people – particularly those in their 20s and 30s – to volunteer their time and skills in hospices. The campaign, named 13 Days, hopes to encourage young people to consider volunteering.

Hospices, which care for people facing the end of their life, aim to meet the emotional and spiritual needs of a patient as well as the physical – so there are a whole host of opportunities and roles for volunteers. Through practical care or simply by chatting, bringing in a pet, singing, playing or helping someone to fulfil a lifelong ambition, you don’t need to be in the medical profession to help out.

Contrary to belief, hospices are not morbid places, and just a little time given is deeply appreciated. Emma, 25, who is training to be a nurse and volunteers at the Hospice of St Francis, writes of how her preconception that volunteering in hospice would be depressing was unfounded:

"There is a brilliant atmosphere at the hospice and it really is a fun place to be. Of course it is sometimes sad but I really enjoy going there."

Hospices are run almost entirely as charities (28% of adult hospices and 5% of child hospices are funded by the government) so are required to raise their own funds – a collective sum of over £300 million. Hospices, therefore, are the biggest fundraising case in the country, and depend on volunteers.

“Hospices rely on volunteers to provide vital support that meets the unique needs of people with life-limiting and terminal illness, as well as their friends and family,” media officer Zoe Grumbridge from Help the Hospices told Sideways News.

“Volunteers come from a range of backgrounds, from students to retired people, from people who volunteer their professional qualifications and skills to people who simply give their time and enthusiasm, to take on a job that needs doing. Volunteers gain as well as give. It’s a chance to make new friends, face new challenges and learn new skills.”