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Purpose of this role

Our Supportive Care services help patients, carers, family members, children, or close friends to cope emotionally and practically when a diagnosis of cancer or another life-changing illness is received. Support is tailored to the needs of each patient and family, drawing expertise from our four specialist teams.

It’s a really busy team, and they would really benefit from the skills of a volunteer to help with the admin around providing these services, to make sure that patients and family members get a professional and caring service.

Main tasks

Volunteers in the team take on a range of tasks, which may include all or some of those below:
• making telephone calls to clients, which may include dealing with cancellations and appointments and holding calls to let them know they are on the waiting list
• making telephone calls to Supportive Care volunteers to update them about appointments, cancellations etc.
• entering accurate information into the clinical database
• sending out letters
• scanning patient records onto the clinical database
• creating new documents in Microsoft Excel
• monitoring volunteer expenses
• monitoring volunteer hours
• following up any outstanding paperwork that volunteers need to complete
• creating bereavement letters to be sent out
• entering and updating appointments accurately onto the lone worker diary and taking calls from volunteers to confirm that they have left a client’s home
• booking rooms at Grove House
• dealing with general admin enquiries via email or phone
• contacting clients before a volunteer visits them, to check their status
• managing the Supportive Care inbox and responding promptly to emails
• entering referrals onto the clinical database if needed
• managing and responding to patient related calls in a calm and professional manner

What are we looking for?

• the ability to follow a process carefully and with a high degree of accuracy
• someone with good Microsoft skills, including Word, Excel and Outlook
• the ability to work independently and in a busy nursing office
• the ability to research, understand and collate data and information
• experience of using a database before would be helpful, but full training will be provided
• someone who is reliable and flexible
• 18+

Training and support

• there will be a named line manager who will provide ongoing support
• there will be some mandatory training that you will need to complete at the start of your volunteering with us and then periodically afterwards as refresher training
• we will ask you to complete an online data security training module to help with your understanding of data protection and confidentiality
• your line manager will organise training specific to your role

What you need to know

• you will complete a volunteer application form and we will need to see a form of ID before you get started
• for volunteers based at Peace Hospice we will carry out a Standard Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) check for the adult workforce
• we welcome everyone and will make reasonable adjustments should they be needed
• we will pay reasonable expenses incurred, should you wish to claim them
• we rely on the commitment of our volunteers to support our services, however we understand that you may sometimes need to take a break from your volunteering. When you are ready to return, your line manager will meet with you to talk about the role and make sure it is still right for you, and may ask you to complete some refresher training.

For more information, please contact the volunteering team on 01727 731020 (Grove House, St Albans), or 01923 330330 (Peace Hospice, Watford), volunteers@renniegrovepeace.org