Pears Foundation

Young volunteers can make a distinctive contribution to the NHS, bringing energy, fresh perspectives and stronger connections with the communities it serves. Volunteering also gives young people opportunities to develop confidence and skills, contribute to their communities and gain experience of health and care.

Through the Pears #iwill Fund, Pears Foundation worked with NHS England and partners to increase the scale and quality of youth volunteering across the NHS. Launched in 2017, the programme built on learning from Nesta’s Helping in Hospitals programme and the wider #iwill campaign, with a particular focus on creating high-quality, inclusive and sustainable opportunities.

More than 30 NHS trusts across England, Scotland and Wales received funding to develop their youth volunteering programmes. Rather than funding a prescribed model, the programme enabled individual trusts to develop approaches suited to their own services and communities in areas ranging from patient support to mental health and wellbeing.

An important part of the programme was learning what worked. The Institute for Voluntary Action Research convened a peer learning network, bringing participating trusts together to share experience, identify common challenges and develop good practice. This helped build knowledge and capability within the NHS as well as supporting individual volunteering programmes.

Although this phase of our funding has concluded, our commitment to volunteering in the NHS has continued. We have subsequently supported research by The King’s Fund into the role and potential of volunteering in health and care, alongside investment in the infrastructure needed to strengthen volunteering across NHS ambulance services.

Together, this work demonstrated the value of giving young people meaningful opportunities to contribute to the NHS, while helping health services develop the knowledge, confidence and infrastructure to involve volunteers well.