Care and Compassion

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Care and Compassion The role of the Voluntary
Community Sector (VCS) in End of Life Care

• Ben Smith
• Policy Development Officer
• Voluntary Action LeicesterShire

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Voluntary Action LeicesterShire

• Helping people change their lives for the better
  through volunteering and community action
• We run the Volunteer Centre for Leicester and
  Leicestershire so individuals can find the right
  volunteering opportunities for them
• We provide support for voluntary and community
  organisations so that they can carry out their
  work more effectively
• We enable the VCS to influence and shape policy
  and help local groups understand the implications
  of policy decisions

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VCS A Definition

• The VCS is diverse, active and passionate
• It includes voluntary and community
  organisations, charities, social enterprises,
  cooperatives, mutual's, and companies both large
  and small
• The ways in which the sector works, the
  activities it carries out and the beneficiaries
  it supports, are very diverse
• providing services to the public and to
  particular community groups
• providing advocacy on behalf of communities and
  the individuals
• contributing expertise and experience to policy
  formulation

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Scope of the VCS

• Adult Education
• Advice
• Advocacy
• Alcohol/Drugs/Smoking
• Arts/Culture
• Asylum Seekers Refugees
• Bereavement
• Birth/Pregnancy
• Campaigning
• Carers
• Children
• Chronic Medical Condition
• Community Care
• Community Development
• Community Safety
• Counselling
• Cultural
• Economic Development
• Education

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Groups in contact with VAL

• The VAL database holds the details of 4720 VCS
  organisations and groups, of these 3411 work in
  the County
• There are 990 groups whose main interest or
  client group is children, young people families
• There are 656 groups who specialise in providing
  health social care services

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What can the VCS add

• Value, innovation and quality in delivering
  public services
• Efficient and effective services that can produce
  better and lasting outcomes
• Trusted by their communities and able to deliver
  and focus services in hard to reach areas

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Economic Value of the Voluntary and Community
Sector

• 39 of the UKs population volunteer
• 22 of the volunteers choose to give their time
  to health and social care VCS organisations
• The average volunteer gives up 2.75 hours per
  week
• At minimum wage levels the financial contribution
  of volunteers in Leicester and Leicestershire
  (aged over 16 and under 75) is 2,885,771.00 per
  week (634,869.72 in Health Social Care)

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Economic Value of the Palliative Care Voluntary
and Community Sector

• Most VCS providers of palliative and end of life
  care get a proportion of their costs funded
  through public sector contracts
• On average, adult hospices in England received
  only 34 of their running costs from government
  funds in 2009 (Help the Hosipices 2010a)
• Government funding for childrens hospices is
  typically much lower than for adult hospices, and
  is on average 15 of running costs (HtH 2010b)

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Economic Value of Volunteering in Palliative Care

• Over 100,000 people volunteer in local hospices
  in the UK.
• Without them hospices could not continue the work
  that they do.
• A study by Help the Hospices in 2006 estimated
  the economic value of volunteers to independent
  charitable hospices in the UK to be over 112
  million.
• If hospices employed people to do the work done
  by volunteers, their costs would increase by
  nearly 25. 

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• Thank you
• Ben Smith
• ben.s_at_valonline.org.uk
• 0116 2575029