Version two - published 1st October 2018 Helpforce Volunteering Innovators Programme Join our programme to develop and scale high-impact volunteer services in the NHS. We are calling for Expressions of Interest (EoI) In partnership with NHS England, we are looking for NHS hospital trusts to help enhance and transform volunteering in and around hospital settings. We want to work with you to develop and scale your service innovations that involve volunteers, to help deliver broad benefits to the NHS. The ambition for this programme is to identify, enhance and spread a series of impactful volunteer services supporting the front-line of the NHS; services that improve the well-being and experience of patients, staff and volunteers or improve efficiency. These will be locally driven, evolved in partnership with NHS and voluntary sector partners, and shared nationally through Helpforce. The opportunity Volunteers already contribute significantly to the NHS, a fact which is often not fully recognised. Volunteering varies significantly across NHS organisations, in terms of practice, scale, types of roles and how well volunteers are integrated with staff and services. There are some superb examples of innovation in volunteer services across the NHS. HelpForce aims to help the NHS identify, celebrate, improve, evidence, spread and scale these innovations. Volunteering benefits everyone in the NHS. We believe there is significant untapped potential for volunteers to play a greater role in the NHS, and to better support patients, staff and services. NHS England is working in partnership with Helpforce to: build an infrastructure for volunteering in the NHS so that it is ready to be adopted at scale across the national service; create system change that will ensure long-term sustainability in volunteering; provide positive disruption to enable change and new ways of working; develop a model of support for all volunteers who operate in NHS settings (whether they volunteer for the NHS or VCSE organisations) and volunteer service managers. As part of this partnership, we have launched the Helpforce Volunteering Innovators Programme. We will select and work closely with ten NHS hospital trusts and, where applicable, their NHS and third sector partners. We are looking for hospital trusts with an established volunteer service that is making a difference 1
to patients, staff, volunteers and the hospital. We are also interested in hearing about new planned and designed services that have yet to be delivered but you believe will have great potential. HelpForce and its NHS and voluntary sector partners will work with the selected trusts to develop, prove (evidence) and scale your service. We will ask you to lead on shaping how the service can be enhanced, working with a cohort (facilitated by HelpForce) of other trusts that are developing a similar service. And, working with the cohort and our national Learning Network, we will spread the service to other NHS regions across England. More information on Helpforce can be found on our website at www.helpforce.community. The programme Helpforce is looking to work with ten NHS hospital trusts that have a volunteer service that has the potential to be scaled at a national level. As part of a funding agreement with NHS England, Helpforce is offering a grant of 75,000 (to cover the programme duration out to April 2020 period) to each trust selected. With the assistance from Helpforce, NHS England, our partners and a growing network of NHS trusts, we will work with your volunteer service innovation to: 1. develop it further and make it as effective as possible; 2. scale it across more wards and more sites across the trust, and encourage adoption at other trusts; 3. measure it and generate evidence of impact by using Helpforce s Insight and Impact Framework; 4. sustain it for on-going future success. By April 2020, the ambition of the programme is to have a series of volunteer services that are proven to have an impact on patients, staff, volunteers, and health and care services. We will then aim to spread these services across England, and the rest of the UK, in the subsequent Scale phase (April 2020 - April 2022). What kind of projects will Helpforce support? We welcome EOIs from all NHS hospital trusts that identify a volunteer service innovation with the potential to make the greatest difference to our main beneficiaries: patients, staff, volunteers, and health and care services. The list below provides examples of some of the areas of volunteering that HelpForce is interested in hearing about. These are priority areas for NHS leaders, pinch points in the patient pathway where volunteers could help make the greatest impact. These can be in and around the hospital setting, and could include innovations 2
based in the community, if linked to the hospital trust (e.g. working with a GP surgery, a hospice, a hospital to home service, or an early intervention team). We are interested in hearing about solutions where trusts are working in partnership with other NHS settings (e.g. primary care, community, mental health) and / or third sector partners (e.g. local or national charities, voluntary sector organisations or social enterprises) to deliver their innovation. Please note that this is not a mandatory requirement. We will accept applications for both new and existing volunteering innovations. However, to support the spread of volunteering, it is expected that funding awarded to existing innovations will be used to expand the service e.g. to other beneficiaries, settings, NHS trusts. NB what follows is not an exhaustive list of everything that volunteers do in the NHS. It aims to provide examples of the types of volunteer-supported services that could create system change if scaled nationally. Prevention support (to reduce demand on acute trusts) Emergency Department support Mobility support for patients Dementia care, long-term conditions, maternity, children & young people End of Life support Staff support ( Bleep volunteers ) Clinical areas Transition: Discharge Transport and accompaniment Transition: Community (including hospital to home ) We also welcome Expressions of Interest that showcase volunteer innovations which address health inequalities and highlight how volunteers can be used to support integrated and personalised care for people with long-term conditions and older people. Important note: Helpforce does not support the use of volunteers for job substitution in any circumstances. We expect volunteers will always be additional to paid NHS employees, and helping to support rather than replace existing staff. The offer to trusts Help with developing and scaling your volunteer service innovation so that you can better support your hospital, staff and patients Tools and expertise for evaluation of your volunteer service, to deliver evidence of impact to your executive board 3
Opportunity for your trust to play a leading role in progressing volunteering in the NHS Opportunity to adopt new volunteering services for your trusts and identify the impact of these on patients, staff, and efficiency Membership of the HelpForce Learning Network, a peer-to-peer support community of NHS trust leaders and volunteer service managers, to help with improvement of your volunteer services & volunteer management practice Other benefits including a license for Better Impact - a volunteer management software package for your Trust - paid for by Helpforce Opportunity to work with our strategic partner the Royal Voluntary Service in hospitals and communities to build further volunteer capacity and sustainability. Grant of 75,000 from Helpforce to help resource your project Thanks to a separate arrangement between Helpforce and Health Education England, we will also support you with creating the relevant training programmes for your innovations. We are looking for Buy-in from senior leadership, board, and unions A programme coordinator within the trust to lead the programme locally and be the main liaison point with Helpforce and its national partners Engagement and commitment (time, resources, expertise, etc) of clinical teams Good governance - e.g., taskforce/steering group setup for Helpforce work Commitment to continuous improvement and evidence generation Willingness to try new things/new ways of working (e.g., co-design methods, digital) Willingness to participate in wider pieces of work that have national implications (e.g., special projects, research). Willingness to share progress and learnings. with other trusts in the programme and wider Helpforce learning network (at face-to-face events, webinars/tcs). Willingness to be open to Helpforce improvement opportunities Participation at Helpforce events and site visits Commitment to sustain the innovation beyond the grant funding period, providing the evidence of impact is identified There will be some minimum reporting requirements identified for funded programmes. Successful organisations will need to agree to these monitoring and reporting arrangements at the outset. Organisations who do not meet these requirements may risk having future payments withheld. 4
We welcome you to submit your EOI All NHS hospital trusts in England are invited to submit an EOI. Please note that to be eligible to apply for the funding, you must submit an EOI. All EOIs must be submitted by 9am on 31st October 2018. To do this, you will need to complete a short form on the Helpforce website. Helpforce and NHS England will use the submitted EOIs to understand the breadth and depth of all the fantastic volunteer innovations that are occurring across England. We will use the information in the EOIs to better understand how, nationally, we can best support NHS trusts to develop and scale their volunteer innovations. With input from NHS England, Helpforce will then assess and prioritise the EOIs using selection criteria listed in the FAQs. 5
Timeline Expression of interest (EOI) phase We invite you to submit an Expression of Interest (EOI) form by 9am on 31st October 2018. We will be hosting a webinar on 12th October to provide further information on Helpforce and the Volunteering Innovators programme. We encourage potential applicants to attend this webinar to find out about what we are looking for from applications. We will make a recording of the webinar available for those unable to attend. We will also update the FAQ section on our website based on any queries identified through the webinar activities. In order to reserve a place on the webinar please email us at wave2@helpforce.community. Also contact us on this email address if you have any queries which the webinar and FAQs have been unable to satisfy. Prioritising Based on the EOIs, Helpforce will work with NHS England to prioritise projects with the greatest potential. The prioritisation will be completed by 12th November 2018. Develop proposals The trusts with EOIs that have been prioritised will be invited to develop full proposals. By 12th November, Helpforce will share documentation to support proposal development by trusts, including templates, a guidance document, and details on how proposals will be scored. There will also be a webinar during this phase, on 21st November. These second stage proposals will need to be submitted by 5th December. Shortlisting and Interviews Helpforce will score all proposals that have been submitted by the deadline, and will then select a shortlist of c. 12-15 trusts, based on the scoring. The shortlist of trusts will be announced on 14th December 2018. The shortlisted trusts will be invited to present their proposal at an interview with Helpforce in the week of the 14th January. We will share details of the location in due course. Final selection Selection of the ten successful hospital trusts will be made by Helpforce and NHS England and final decisions will be announced in early 2019. 6
Summary At the end of the process, if your application is successful you will be sent an agreement letter detailing the full terms and conditions of the funding. Some of the terms you may wish to know in advance are: The terms and conditions must be accepted by a board member or member of the Executive Team. Funding is restricted funds for the purposes of this Programme. The funding is recoverable if you do not use it for the purposes intended. The funding may not be passed to a third party. There is no commitment to any funding after the agreed term If successful the Board Member or member of the Executive Team will be asked to sign a statement of funding usage, which will confirm that the funding will not be used to fund ineligible activities. 7