TY - JOUR

T1 - Hospice volunteers

T2 - bridging the gap to the community?

AU - Morris, Sara

AU - Payne, Sheila

AU - Ockenden, Nick

AU - Hill, Matthew

PY - 2017/11

Y1 - 2017/11

N2 - Current demographic, policy and management changes are a challenge tohospices to develop their volunteering practices. The study upon whichthis paper is based aimed to explore good practice in volunteerinvolvement and identify ways of improving care through developingvolunteering. The project consisted of a narrative literature review; asurvey of volunteer managers; and organisational case studies selectedthrough purposive diversity sampling criteria. A total of 205 staff,volunteers, patients and relatives were interviewed across 11 sites inEngland in 2012. This article focuses on one of the findings – the placethat volunteers occupy between the hospice and the community beyondits walls. External changes and pressures in society were impacting onvolunteer management, but were viewed as requiring a careful balancingact to retain the ‘spirit’ of the hospice philosophy. Honouring thedevelopmental history of the hospice was vital to many respondents, butviewed less positively by those who wished to modernise. Hospices tendto be somewhat secluded organisations in Britain, and external links andnetworks were mostly within the end-of-life care arena, with fewreferring to the wider volunteering and community fields. Volunteerswere seen as an informal and symbolic ‘link’ to the local community,both in terms of their ‘normalising’ roles in the hospice and as providinga two-way flow of information with the external environment whereknowledge of hospice activities remains poor. The diversity of thecommunity is not fully represented among hospice volunteers. A fewhospices had deliberately tried to forge stronger interfaces with theirlocalities, but these ventures were often controversial. The evidencesuggests that there is substantial scope for hospices to develop thestrategic aspects of volunteering through greater community engagementand involvement and by increasing diversity and exploiting volunteers’‘boundary’ position more systematically to educate, recruit and raiseawareness.

AB - Current demographic, policy and management changes are a challenge tohospices to develop their volunteering practices. The study upon whichthis paper is based aimed to explore good practice in volunteerinvolvement and identify ways of improving care through developingvolunteering. The project consisted of a narrative literature review; asurvey of volunteer managers; and organisational case studies selectedthrough purposive diversity sampling criteria. A total of 205 staff,volunteers, patients and relatives were interviewed across 11 sites inEngland in 2012. This article focuses on one of the findings – the placethat volunteers occupy between the hospice and the community beyondits walls. External changes and pressures in society were impacting onvolunteer management, but were viewed as requiring a careful balancingact to retain the ‘spirit’ of the hospice philosophy. Honouring thedevelopmental history of the hospice was vital to many respondents, butviewed less positively by those who wished to modernise. Hospices tendto be somewhat secluded organisations in Britain, and external links andnetworks were mostly within the end-of-life care arena, with fewreferring to the wider volunteering and community fields. Volunteerswere seen as an informal and symbolic ‘link’ to the local community,both in terms of their ‘normalising’ roles in the hospice and as providinga two-way flow of information with the external environment whereknowledge of hospice activities remains poor. The diversity of thecommunity is not fully represented among hospice volunteers. A fewhospices had deliberately tried to forge stronger interfaces with theirlocalities, but these ventures were often controversial. The evidencesuggests that there is substantial scope for hospices to develop thestrategic aspects of volunteering through greater community engagementand involvement and by increasing diversity and exploiting volunteers’‘boundary’ position more systematically to educate, recruit and raiseawareness.

KW - community engagement

KW - end-of-life care

KW - hospice

KW - inclusion

U2 - 10.1111/hsc.12232

DO - 10.1111/hsc.12232

M3 - Journal article

VL - 25

SP - 1704

EP - 1713

JO - Health and Social Care in the Community

JF - Health and Social Care in the Community

SN - 0966-0410

IS - 6

ER -