Ministers seek volunteer social care army to speed up hospital discharges

Health ministers are to recruit a new volunteer army for social care to ferry medical equipment and drugs to people’s homes in a bid to free up congested hospital wards.

Under the plan, members of the public will be able to sign up on the GoodSam app for roles such as “check in and chat”, which involves support over the phone for people struggling with loneliness.

There will also be the chance to “pick up and deliver”, helping to transport medicines or small items of medical equipment to people’s homes from NHS sites so they can be discharged from hospital, and “community response” roles will involve collecting and delivering shopping and prescriptions.

The joint NHS and social care volunteers responders programme for England is being launched on Wednesday amid a social care staffing crisis with 165,000 vacancies and millions of hours of care needs not being met. At the end of April, 49,000 people every day had to stay in NHS hospitals in England despite no longer meeting the criteria to be there.

News of the planned announcement from the care minister, Helen Whately, has sparked concern among workers in the sector, who warned that volunteering could not solve the social care recruitment and retention crisis. Helen Wildbore, director of Care Rights UK, which represents relatives and residents, said it “feels like a desperate measure to try and save a system that is crumbling”.

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Source: The Guardian, 6 June 2023