The second annual national ambulance volunteering survey was completed in April, building on the success and insights of the first annual survey in 2024.
This represents greater national collaboration between trusts, and provides us with important insights into the volunteering experience across the UK ambulance service. There are approximately nine to ten thousand volunteers active across the UK at any time, and over 2100 volunteers responded to the survey, representing a completion rate of over 20%.
Overall the results reveal an ambulance volunteering population with high levels of satisfaction and engagement. These include:
- Over 80% of respondents said they are “satisfied” or “very satisfied”.
- Over 80% of respondents said that their skills had increased as a result of volunteering.
- Over 70% said that their training and induction prepared them well for their role.
The importance of this cannot be overstated. Ambulance volunteering teams work tirelessly to ensure that volunteers feel valued, safe and motivated to give their best to our patients and our services. Despite considerable operational pressures, these results demonstrate that volunteering teams have cultivated positive, committed, safe and effective volunteering services.
The national survey is also an important opportunity to identify areas where we could potentially improve the volunteering experience.
Although they differ from trust to trust, some general observations from the national results include:
- We could do more to widen participation by people currently underrepresented in ambulance volunteering, including young people, women and people from ethnic minority backgrounds.
- According to 38% of volunteers the recruitment period took longer than expected. Ambulance services will continue to work locally and nationally to further improve and streamline processes, to ensure that recruitment, training and onboarding are efficient whilst continuing to be thorough and safe.
- Some volunteers would welcome greater flexibility in their volunteering and felt daunted by the time commitment. Services are committed to identifying a range of ambulance volunteering opportunities which can fit in with people’s busy lives.
You can view some of the results here.
We look forward to working with colleagues to continue developing and improving our volunteering services, and we will also work to ensure that there is appropriate investment in and support for volunteering services.
We would like to thank all of the volunteers who took time to complete the survey. We would also like to thank the volunteering teams who make all of this possible.
Signed,
Peter Reading (CEO at Yorkshire Ambulance Service)
Martin Holloway (Chair of the national Volunteer Strategic Oversight Group, and Deputy Chair at South Western Ambulance Service)
