NHS Volunteer Workforce Data Collection
Collection frequency
Quarterly
Background
Volunteers provide additional capacity and flexibility in how services are delivered and well-designed and managed volunteering programmes improve satisfaction and wellbeing ratings for staff, as well as patients.
There is a commitment to widen participation and improve the diversity of our volunteering population to ensure that volunteers are representative of the communities' organisations serve.
Data will provide a baseline to drive improvement in equality of access and opportunity.
The NHS Volunteer Taskforce Report recommended that NHS England should develop consistent and appropriate measures to track the number of NHS volunteers to include number of volunteers, volunteering hours and diversity data. The Taskforce also recommended that the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) should explore ways to track the number of care volunteers as part of workforce returns.
The data will be used to share good practice and monitor and assess delivery of a number of commitments made regarding volunteering, equalities and resilience as follows:
- The NHS England NHS Long Term Plan - Staff and patients will benefit from a doubling of the number of volunteers also helping across the NHS
- The Equality Objectives Programme NHS England - To implement a framework for monitoring the number of volunteers across the NHS by reference to protected characteristics and any other relevant characteristics. [2023/24 and 2024/25]
- NHS Long Term Workforce Plan Leveraging the Impact of Volunteers
Submission dates
The collection will open on the first of the month following the end of the quarter data is being submitted for, and the deadline for submission will be no later than three weeks (15 working days) after the quarter ends. Registered users will have access to the exact dates in the Data Collections Framework.
Further information
Data Provision Notice to require the submission of data relating to to track the number of NHS volunteers.
Last edited: 4 March 2024 2:36 pm