Making Volunteering Work in Community Hospitals: Lessons from Sussex and Dorset
Who should attend?
The session is free and open to anyone working in or around community hospitals. It will be particularly useful for:
- Ward, discharge and therapy teams in community hospitals
- Voluntary services managers and volunteer coordinators
- Patient experience and community engagement leads
- Hospital managers looking to strengthen links with their local community
- Trustees and members of Leagues of Friends and other hospital charities
Why attend?
Event timing: Wednesday 4th November 2026, 12.30 - 1.30PM
Volunteers can make a real difference to community hospitals, on the ward and after patients go home. Join us for a practical one-hour session where two organisations, including one of the 2025 CHA Innovation and Best Practice Award winners, share how they have made volunteering work, what they learned and what you could take back to your own hospital. As with every session in the series, the two short talks are followed by a chaired question and answer session, giving you time to put your own questions to both speakers.
What you will learn
- How to set up a new volunteer role to support patients after discharge, including training, IT and governance
- How a Friends charity organises its volunteers to support a hospital through fundraising, the charity shop and work on the ward
- How to design volunteer roles around the real needs of patients, staff and the community
- What makes recruitment work, and how to keep volunteers engaged by showing them the difference they make
- How hospitals and Friends charities can work together on shared priorities
Speakers and talks
Right Place, Right Time: Volunteers Supporting Patients After Discharge
The Voluntary and Community Development Team, Sussex Community NHS Foundation Trust, presented by David Slade, Senior Voluntary and Community Development Manager
The team won the Integration and Continuity of Care Award at the CHA Innovation and Best Practice Awards 2025. David will share how the team created a Volunteer Discharge Role, with volunteers calling patients after they leave hospital and pointing them to further support in their community.
A Community Model of Volunteering, Partnership and Practical Support
Anne Salter, Chair of the Friends of Victoria Hospital, Wimborne
Anne will describe how the Friends’ volunteers, from trustees and shop staff to event fundraisers and hospital volunteers, connect community energy with NHS priorities, and what makes that partnership work.