Our volunteers are at the heart of what we do.
Our volunteers are out in the community everyday listening to people to find out if health and care is working for them
Whether you want to gain valuable work experience, help improve care in your community or learn new skills, there are lots of ways you can join us to make a real difference.
Our volunteers support us in many different ways. From speaking to local people to find out what they think about health and care, to using these views to influence those who run services, volunteers play an important role at Healthwatch.
After spending most of my life in and out of hospital, I want to help make a difference and improve services for people.
Volunteer Opportunities
Youth ambassadors
Overview
As a Youth Ambassador you will facilitate communication between young people and health & social care organisation. Collecting views and opinions from other young people about their experiences of accessing services and feeding this back to Healthwatch Bedford Borough.
Why should you be a Healthwatch Young Ambassador?
As a Youth Ambassador you will improve your communication skills and learn valuable skills that can be transferred to the workplace. You will be communicating with your peers, team members and the general public. We need volunteers to help us collect information to help identify gaps or issues in the care being provided to people in Bedford Borough.
Young people need to have their voices heard about local services and as a Youth Ambassador you will be an integral part of this process and to assist services to change.
Volunteering can count towards placement and volunteering hours for school, sixth form, college or university courses, volunteering roles can also be added to your CV and College/University applications and references can be provided.
What will the role involve?
- Collecting views and opinions from other young people within your college or university
- Data entry into our database/data collection systems
- Promote the role of Healthwatch Bedford Borough to your peers and other groups of young people within your school, sixth form, college or university
- Engage with young people via promotion of our social media platforms, including HBBs newsletters
- Keep updated and attend training
Community Engagement and Outreach Volunteer
Overview
As a Community Engagement and Outreach volunteer, you will play an important role in speaking to people in the community about their views on local health and care services. You will speak to with people via hospitals, libraries, shopping centre stalls, Healthwatch and community events. Online engagement via social media and other platforms may also be part of this role.
Why should you be a Healthwatch Community Engagement and Outreach volunteer?
If you like talking and listening to people, this is the right role for you. We have a vital role to play in ensuring people in [insert area] are engaged, listened to and provided with an avenue to tell us their views and opinions.
By people sharing their experiences with us we can bring these to health and care providers and decision makers in [insert area] to influence services to make them better. You will be an essential part of our team in ensuring people’s voices are collected and heard in the right places. We need you to be the best that we can be.
What will the role involve?
- Working with Healthwatch volunteers and staff team to reach out into different communities to get people’s views on health and social care services
- Planning engagement activities with other volunteers and staff members
- Engaging people using online platforms e.g. Zoom, Microsoft Teams and/or via phone
- Keeping a record of people’s experiences and give these to Healthwatch staff members
- Holding engagement and information stands in community areas such as hospitals, GP Surgeries and dentists
- Talking to and gathering views of the public and reporting this back to us
- Helping us conduct surveys and consultations with local people
Through volunteering, I have constantly felt like I'm doing something positive, and making a difference to health and social care
Enter & View Authorised Representative
Overview
An Enter and View Volunteer listens to people’s experiences of health and care services, including people living in residential homes to understand what is working well and what can be improved.
Why should you be and Enter & View Authorised Representative
You’ll be helping to make life better for people by using the insight to make tangible differences to health and care services. You’ll meet a wide range of people who rely on health and care services. You’ll gain valuable experience which may support your job aspirations. You’ll meet new people, be part of the Healthwatch team who act as the public champion for health and care and make a difference for your local community.
What will the role involve?
- You’ll be part of a team which plans Enter and View visits, including speaking to service managers.
- You’ll talk to people, including family members, carers and staff to get a full picture about how services are working
- You’ll record these experiences and with your team write a report on what’s working well and areas for improvement
- You’ll support the Healthwatch staff who talk to service managers about the changes needed
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As part of a team, you’ll check back to make sure the changes are making a difference
