New Health and Social Care National Grant Fund for Volunteering Organisations

A new funding programme designed to increase investment in volunteering in health and social care was unveiled today by Paul Burstow, Minister of State for Care Services.

This is the Department of Health's first national grant scheme for health and social care volunteering and will make around £3 million available from April 2011. The programme is driven by clear strategic priorities that support the Big Society agenda in the health and adult social care field, as well as key health service priorities.

Projects that focus on volunteer involvement in key areas such as personal budgets, cutting smoking and encouraging healthy eating will be targeted as part of this national fund that will run over the next three years.

The fund will open for new applications each year on a rolling basis with applications funded for up to three years.

Projects can apply for up to £200,000 per annum to support four key priority areas including:

A patient-led NHS
Delivering better health outcomes
Improving public health
Improving health and social care
Projects should have national 'reach' by operating across at least four localities in different regions/counties geographically spread across England. Proposals for funding should differ substantially in scale and priorities from the fund's local projects for which there are separate calls for applications.

Grants will be awarded to projects that develop new, improved and/or streamlined systems in health and social care volunteering rather than projects that can simply supply core services.

The scheme is open to national charities and partnerships of voluntary organisations, as well as social enterprises, co-operatives, mutuals and other not-for-profit organisations, with social aims.

The strategic priorities are available at www.volunteeringfund.com

The timetable is:

Register interest online at www.volunteeringfund.com between16 November and 13 December
Stage 1 Applications: opens 1 December and closes 12 January
Stage 2 Applications for shortlisted applicants: opens 1 March and closes 5 April
Successful projects will come on stream in late Spring 2011.