Volunteering
Healthwatch wants real change within Health and Social Care services and to achieve this we need someone like you!
By volunteering with us you are supporting your local community and local services. You are ensuring the views and experiences,of those within the community, your family and friends are heard.
What is a Healthwatch volunteer?
Healthwatch volunteers are involved in the delivery of Healthwatch activities across the East Riding of Yorkshire area and focus on speaking to local people about their experiences of health and social care services.
Through these activities, Healthwatch volunteers enable us to understand local need. With this information, we highlight best practice and areas of improvement and work with those who run and commission local services to deliver real change.
We are passionate about supporting people to volunteer with us however and as often as they would like. Although you may apply for a single role with Healthwatch, we welcome for volunteers to try new and various activities with us, full training and support is provided to ensure no matter where they are starting from, each of our volunteers have the skills and confidence needed to champion their role.
Are you 16 - 25? Young Healthwatch might be right for you!
Youthwatch is an initiative to enable and magnify young people’s voices by finding out their views and experiences of Health and Social Care Services; with a view to making sure they are meeting people’s needs and to suggest or call for improvements where needed based on people’s comments.
With specific young person focused volunteering opportunities, there’s never been a better time to join!
What Volunteering Opportunities are there with Healthwatch?
Community Engagement Volunteer
Community Engagement Volunteers are vital to our mission as they are the face of Healthwatch and will actively promote our organisation within the community. They will reach out and engage with the community on their own terms, making sure to listen to their experiences and build their confidence by ensuring that their voices are heard.
Enter and View Ambassador
Enter and View Ambassadors enter Health and Social Care premises either through invitation of the provider, because of themed work Healthwatch is conducting or due to the experiences provided to us by service users.
An Enter and View is not an inspection, it is an opportunity for Healthwatch as an independent organisation to view the delivery of the service first-hand and to engage with service users, family of and / or carers at the point of delivery so we can understand the full picture.
Enter and View Ambassadors collect information about the nature and quality of services, the good practices and potential areas of improvement. This information is collated into a report along with any reasonable and achievable recommendations which is then sent to the provider, governing bodies such as Local Authority and Care Quality Commission as well as Healthwatch England.
Food Bank Partnership Volunteer
To be a representative of Healthwatch and gain the experiences of people in the community and seldom heard groups in health and social care, also to support the local community but supporting food banks in the organizing, packing and distribution of food to local seldom heard groups and impoverished communities within Hull.
Hub Volunteer
Healthwatch has hubs within local services as a go to point of contact for our local community where they can speak to us, and share their experiences of local health and care services. As a central point in the centre you can help signpost patients to the many different services on site and help deliver a better patient experience.
Interpreters
Healthwatch Interpreters help us reach local community groups who may face health inequalities and issues but cannot ask for help due to a language barrier. Your involvement as an interpreter will help support Healthwatch gain the experiences of the local community and support improvement in health and social care services in Hull.
Reading Panel Volunteer
Reading Panel Volunteers are crucial in achieving this. They provide a robust service to the community as they review a range of documentation from ourselves and others providers to critique and provide feedback from a layperson’s perspective. They ensure that the documentation the community has access to does not contain anything that is difficult to comprehend or easy to misunderstand.
Reading Panel Volunteers are also essential in allowing Healthwatch to scan and reference a wide range of information to use as evidence towards any themed work or research that we are conducting.
Interested to find out more?
If you have any further queries,or need any assistance in completing an application form, please contact us.