Arthur Rank House (ARH)

Providing palliative care for terminally ill patients and support for their family

The Hospice offers a wide range of services from a 16-bed specialist Palliative Care Unit to a Day Care Centre, which would not be as accessible without the help of Authur Rank House’s 200 volunteers. Volunteers help to staff ARH’s day care service, tea bar, and charity shop, and also do odd jobs such as gardening, baking cakes, and making sympathy cards for bereaved families. They also facilitate in driving patients and their families to and from the day care hospice, a service which is free to ARH clients.

Support is provided for volunteers who range from 17 to 75 by the Voluntary Services Manager, and continued training is given following an introductory course about the work of the hospice according to the volunteers work. This NAHCF member is showing all Friends Groups how to encourage more volunteers.
They recognise the power of encouraging people to develop their gifts and interests through volunteering while also benefiting others. Volunteering does not have to be seen
as the completion of mundane tasks that paid staff just don’t have time to do. Arthur Rank lifts the value of the volunteer by actively seeking people with skills such as photography, craft, secretarial and qualified complimentary therapists to give time from two hours a fortnight to one day per week. All these complimentary tasks, amongst others, enhance the atmosphere of caring and concern for patients, their relatives and friends.

Quotes

Pat Dalrymple, Fundraising Coordinator for Arthur Rank Hospice Charity said ‘It certainly would be a different place without our volunteers. They are completely accepted, and work right alongside our staff in a multidisciplinary way. There is practically no distinctionbetween our paid staff and volunteers.'