Annual Report and Accounts - The Great Western Hospital

A quarterly “Voluntary Service Matters” newsletter is sent to all volunteers and twice a year we hold
“Volunteer Social Events” (including Long Service Awards) to ensure that the volunteers are well
communicated with and have an opportunity to share their ideas with us too.
Volunteer numbers
We currently have 538 volunteers
389 Trust Volunteers 72%
82 WRVS Volunteers 15%
30 Hospital Radio Volunteers 6%
21 British Red Cross Volunteers 4%
16 Friends of Savernake Hospital
& Community 3%
Trust volunteer demographics
22% Male
78% Female
18% of our volunteers are aged between 17-25,
31% of our volunteers are aged between 26-60,
46% of our volunteers are aged between 61-80,
5% of our volunteers are aged over 80.
9.8.1 Number of hours volunteered by Trust volunteers
During 2011/2012 (April ’11 to January ’12) our GWH based Trust volunteers helped us for 20,550
hours. This equates to an average of 2283 hours per month and 61 full time equivalent members of
staff per month. This is an approximate 11% increase on the same period in the previous year.
In total, 3 volunteer leavers secured permanent roles as paid members of staff in the Trust, 1 as a
Nursing Auxiliary and two as Bio Medical Scientists.
9.9 Occupational Health
The Occupational Health Department welcomed the introduction of the National Occupational Health
Standards for Accreditation, published 2010, and is now working towards full accreditation by
summer 2012.
The Boorman Review, published during 2009, which showed that being proactive and putting in place
preventative measures will yield considerable benefits for individuals and for patients continues to be
one of the main drivers for OH activity and during 2011/12 has seen the implementation of the Health
& Wellbeing programme which is a new and innovative service, offered to all employees. This
enables every member of staff to have an assessment to look at all aspects of their health and
lifestyle and specialist advice is offered to design a bespoke programme to make changes which will
improve and enhance their health and wellbeing both at work and at home.
The Occupational Health department continues to work closely with managers and HR to reduce time
lost due to sickness absence. The two key areas that have been addressed are Musculoskeletal
Disorder (MSD) issues and reducing stress related absence.
The Occupational Health team now has an OH nurse advisor who is also a Registered Mental Health
Nurse. This nurse complements the nurses already in post who can offer Cognitive Behavioural
Therapy, and also works alongside the Staff Support Service, who offer the full range of counselling
and support therapies.
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