Home from Hospital Volunteer Visitors

This is a completely free service to anyone who lives alone and has recently been discharged from hospital. Our wonderful Home from Hospital volunteers provide social and practical support by visiting people in their own homes and assisting with things like collecting prescriptions and basic shopping, preparing a light snack, helping people to engage with activities in their local area or maybe just chatting over a cup of tea. We provide our volunteers with full training and on-going support to enable them to make a real difference to local older people in their community.

Full support from our Home from Hospital Coordinators at all times.

Skills

Patience and a kind nature, as well as being a good listener who likes to chat are essential in this volunteer role. No previous experience is needed, but an understanding of some of the issues facing isolated older people would be an advantage. This volunteer role involves hand writing a basic report at the end of each visit. An understanding of the importance of boundaries, confidentiality and a willingness to stick to the remit of the role, always reporting any concerns to the Home from Hospital Co-ordinators is vital in this volunteer role. Confidence to visit clients independently after an induction period.

Benefits

Meeting and assisting lots of older people who often have very interesting stories to tell you.

Gaining experience of the social care sector.

Practical Considerations

Guild Care run our Home from Hospital service throughout Adur and Worthing which is an area stretching from Goring in the west to Southwick in the east.

Although some volunteers prefer to stick to certain areas, you may still find it difficult to reach some of our clients without a car. Volunteers need to phone or ideally text in to the office just before and at the end of each visit.

We can only offer this role Monday - Friday during office hours. Unfortunately we cannot offer this role to people who are only free during evenings and weekends. 

When do I need to be available?

Details

Volunteers normally agree to one visit lasting up to two hours (excluding travel time) per week. Each client is entitled to a series of six weekly two hour visits. As our clients prefer the continuity of seeing the same person each time, we would ask that volunteers check they are available for the full six weeks before accepting a new client to visit. Your safety and wellbeing is very important to us. We need to be able to provide telephone support to all of our visiting volunteers while they are out and about. Therefore unfortunately we cannot offer this volunteer role during the weekends or in the evening.

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Register your Interest