Volunteer Support for Care Homes and Care Home Staff now available

A new organisation of volunteer health and care students has offered support to care homes and care home staff through a HIN pilot scheme.

HealthSHIP (Health Students Helping in Pandemics) are mostly health students (i.e. nursing, physio, occupational therapy, medical) with valid DBS certificates, and free time on their hands who are keen to support NHS and social care staff with everyday needs (errands, childcare, pet care, grocery shopping, admin, non-clinical tasks, etc). The scheme is nationwide – it’s free, quick and easy, representing 87 universities and over 1,100 users.

HealthSHIP are keen to support Care Home Pioneer staff with any shopping, errands or help for their own families. In addition, care homes wanting volunteers to volunteer in their care homes can also request help – local medical students will volunteer to support if they can. The Health Innovation Network is helping to coordinate this pilot.

To register for the scheme, care home managers should:

1) Make an account for your care home on www.healthSHIP.org with your email and post tasks/roles you need help with. This would then prompt medical student volunteers to respond to the requests and then become volunteers of the care homes / care home staff.

2. Distribute the HealthSHIP website to your care home staff members who can sign up in a personal capacity and request help for their personal lives. You will need to email HealthSHIP with the personal email addresses of care home staff who want to register, so they can be verified.