International Year of the Nurse & Midwife 2020

2020 is the first ever global Year of the Nurse and Midwife.  And 2020 is also Florence Nightingale’s bicentennial year, designated by World Health Organisation.  Nurses and midwives make up the largest numbers of the NHS workforce.  They are highly skilled, multi-faceted professionals from a host of backgrounds that represent our diverse communities. 2020 is our time to reflect on these skills, the commitment and expert clinical care they bring, and the impact they make on the lives of so many. This year is also an opportunity to say thank you to the professions; to showcase their diverse talents and expertise; and to promote nursing and midwifery as careers with a great deal to offer.

Volunteers are also highly skilled, multi-faceted, from a host of backgrounds and there are currently just over 2,000 volunteers across the Health & Social Care Trusts in Northern Ireland, undertaking approx 291,306 hours of volunteering!

Volunteer Now, Helpforce and the Health & Social Care Forum have produced a report which offers a broad picture of the impact that volunteering has across the Health & Social Care Trusts in Northern Ireland.  The report – ‘Volunteer Impact and Outcomes in Health & Social Care Trusts in Northern Ireland‘ offers a broad picture of the impact that volunteering is having across the Trust services.  There has been the view for some time that the involvement of volunteers across the Health and Social Care services should be reviewed in order to understand the difference which involving volunteers is currently making and to inform future volunteer development across the Trusts.

The Volunteering in Health and Social Care Forum offers an opportunity for the volunteer co-ordinator or person responsible for volunteering in each of the Trusts to come together to share information and discuss common issues in relation to volunteer management.  The introduction of the HelpForce project into Northern Ireland, funded by the National Lottery Community Fund and delivered by Volunteer Now, has been a strategic and operational investment from both organisations.  This investment has enabled Volunteer Now to carry out an evaluation and provide this report.

Download a copy of the Report here.

Contact George Gillespie for further information on george.gillespie@volunteernow.co.uk or 028 9023 2020.