Better outcomes and stronger communities: building the NHS of the future

NHS leaders are facing immediate and significant challenges: reducing pressure on acute services, helping people leave hospital safely, improving patient outcomes and experience, supporting an overstretched workforce and making the best use of increasingly constrained resources.

At the same time, the NHS 10-Year Health Plan sets out an ambitious vision for the future - one built around better outcomes and experiences for patients and a more sustainable health service, with more care delivered closer to home, a greater focus on prevention and better use of digital technology.

Delivering that vision while responding to the pressures of today will require us to think differently about where capacity, support and solutions can come from.

The NHS cannot do this through clinical services alone. Stronger relationships with NHS charities, voluntary and community organisations, and the communities the NHS serves will be increasingly important - whether that is helping people recover well at home, reaching people earlier, reducing health inequalities or ensuring new ways of delivering care work for everyone.

Across the country, we are already seeing what becomes possible when health services work differently with communities. And one of the assets with significant potential is volunteering.

Too often, volunteering is viewed as a ‘nice to have’ rather than a strategic asset. Yet through the Volunteering for Health programme, we have seen first-hand how volunteers can contribute to some of the challenges that matter most to health and care systems.

The question is not whether volunteering has value. It is whether we are making the most of the contribution it can offer.

Improving patient experience

While clinical excellence remains fundamental, patients have consistently shared that their quality of care is also shaped by human connection, communication and support. Feeling informed, listened to and connected can make a significant difference to how people experience services and manage their health and wellbeing.

This is where volunteers can make a unique contribution.

Volunteers have time to provide reassurance, practical guidance and social support that complements the work of clinical teams. They help people navigate services, access community support and feel more connected during periods of illness, recovery or change.

By enhancing overall patient experience, volunteers help health systems deliver more personalised care while supporting better outcomes for individuals and communities.

Helping people leave hospital and recover well at home

The shift from hospital to community will only succeed if people have access to practical and emotional support beyond formal health services.

Volunteers can play an important role in bridging this gap.

Volunteering for Health partnerships are developing models that support smoother transitions between hospital and home. In the Black Country, volunteers work alongside social prescribing teams to support people following discharge, helping individuals access local services, rebuild confidence and reconnect with their communities.

This type of support not only improves the experience of recovery but also strengthens links between healthcare services and community-based support.

As more care is delivered closer to home, these connections will become increasingly important.

Strengthening prevention through trusted relationships

Prevention remains one of the greatest opportunities to improve population health and reduce future demand on services. However, prevention does not happen solely within healthcare settings. It happens in people's homes, neighbourhoods and communities.

Many of the communities experiencing the poorest health outcomes are also those least likely to engage with traditional services. Volunteers can help bridge this gap because they often bring local knowledge, lived experience and trusted relationships.

In Lancashire and South Cumbria, trained volunteers have been supporting conversations about bowel cancer screening within community settings, helping raise awareness and increase engagement with preventative services.

Volunteers can extend the reach of prevention programmes and help health systems engage people who may otherwise be missed.

Ensuring digital transformation works for everyone

Digital innovation offers enormous opportunities to improve access and transform the way people interact with health services. But it also brings a risk that some people and communities are left behind.

Digital inclusion remains a challenge, particularly for people who have limited access to technology or lack confidence in using digital services. Volunteers can provide the human support that helps make digital transformation more inclusive.

In Northamptonshire, volunteers are helping people access digital services, navigate online systems and build confidence with technology.

As the NHS becomes increasingly digital, this kind of support can help ensure that transformation improves access rather than creating new barriers.

A sustainable system

Delivering sustainable health and care requires stronger partnerships between the NHS, local authorities, charities, community organisations and the people they serve.

Volunteering contributes to this wider system resilience. It strengthens relationships between services and communities, creates opportunities for people to support one another and helps build the community capacity that underpins healthier populations.

However, effective volunteering does not happen by accident. It requires investment in volunteer leadership, management, training, safeguarding and VCSE infrastructure. Without this foundation, volunteering cannot deliver its full potential.

So, what does this mean for NHS leaders?

As NHS leaders continue to respond to today's pressures while delivering the ambitions of the NHS 10-Year Health Plan, volunteering should be considered as part of the solution.

That does not mean simply increasing the number of volunteers. It means thinking strategically about where volunteering can add most value and creating the conditions that enable it to do so effectively.

This means strengthening partnerships with NHS charities and VCSE organisations, investing in the infrastructure that enables effective volunteering and identifying opportunities where volunteers can support priority challenges such as hospital discharge, prevention, health inequalities and patient experience.

Delivering the future NHS will require not only excellent services, but stronger communities too.

Volunteering can help us build both.

Find out more about Volunteering for Health

Email volunteering@anhsc.org.uk

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