It is Volunteers’ Week which gives us the opportunity at our Trust to celebrate the incredible impact our volunteers have.

We have around 300 volunteers in 30 different roles who give their time to support our patients, colleagues and visitors and they all play such a crucial role in our organisation.
There is also the many charities and organisations whose volunteers support the Trust.

Last week, as a special thank you, we held an annual tea party for our volunteers at Wroxeter Hotel to celebrate their contributions.

The tea party and the 40th anniversary of Volunteers’ Week (Monday 3 June to Sunday 9 June) gives us the opportunity to recognise their work.

Our volunteers are a wide variety of ages and come from many different backgrounds, with our oldest volunteer being 89 years old and some volunteers having been with us for over 20 years.

They all say they get so much out of their roles and being able to help people. I would like to thank them for their contribution.

We recently recruited our first cohort for the Volunteer to Career Programme (VtC) in Radiotherapy. The programme gives volunteers an insight into a career within the NHS in a service area and training in skills to prepare them for job interviews and gaining a role.

There have also been two cohorts in VtC Programme in Midwifery and applications are now open for the next cohort which starts in September 2024.

If you are interested in finding out more about volunteering, please get in touch. All the details are on our website www.sath.nhs.uk/working-with-us/volunteering/

Our Trust and Shropshire Community Health NHS Trust have recently announced plans to recruit a Chair in Common across our two organisations.

This is an exciting step forward – it will bring greater collaboration and will build on the great work the two Trusts have been doing.

The advert for the Chair in Common role is available at: www.england.nhs.uk/non-executive-opportunities/2024/05/29/

The closing date for applications is noon on Thursday 18 July.