Volunteers dedicate 30,000 hours a year to support the Royal Berkshire NHS Foundation Trust

A team of 306 volunteers gave 31,824 hours last year to help support staff and enhance services for patients and visitors in our hospitals across Berkshire West. For this International Volunteers Day, the Trust is celebrating the impact that the volunteers play in enhancing patient care and ensuring the smooth running of hospital services.

Our volunteers assist in a wide range of areas including greeting patients and visitors, transporting patients on our hospital buggies, providing support to patients as compassionate companions, helping teams with administration duties, and pharmacy store runners.

They also help run projects, like the Medical Museum and Hospital Radio Reading.

Hospital Radio Reading has been broadcasting since 1957, providing entertainment to patients and visitors at the Royal Berkshire Hospital. The station is run entirely by volunteers, who broadcast live and pre-recorded shows each hour of every day.

Gerard Rocks, Chairman and Volunteer of Hospital Radio Reading said ‘Hospital Radio has an important role to play in helping to keep the patients occupied. When we are chatting to patients to find out about their favourite music so we can feature it in a request programme, sometimes we are the only visitor they’ve had that day. It works on two levels, the face to face contact and a friendly virtual voice in the afternoons.’ Allen Sinclair, said: ‘I’ve seen the difference it makes, I’ve spoken to people who feel better for having somebody from Hospital Radio Reading to cheer them up and take them out of themselves for five minutes.

Sharon Herring, Associate Chief Nurse said ‘Our volunteers are at the heart of the hospital. Not only do they help us support our staff in providing outstanding care to our patients, but they also help provide the personal touches that makes patients’ stay in hospital more comfortable’.