NHS Lothian has a proud history of working with and involving volunteers across our services that has spanned that last 80 years. With the COVID-19 pandemic, we saw a rise in the number of people wanting to help in any way they could.
There are many reasons why people choose to volunteer. Some want work experience, others have time on their hands and want to give back and for some they want to meet new people. Each volunteer’s experience is different and for some it can be life changing, as they discover a new passion or drive. For some it can be the steeping stone into a new job and for others the springboard for a whole new vocation.
To mark volunteer week, we caught up with one of our volunteers, Fiona, who decided to begin a whole new career with NHS Lothian after being inspired through her volunteer role.
Fiona Curle, 54, worked at Standard Life for 34 years. After volunteering regularly with NHS Lothian for a year alongside her role as Senior Change Manager, she decided it was time – for a change!
She now works as a Phlebotomist in the Western General Hospital, overcoming her childhood fears of all things bloody!
Fiona said: “My childhood dream was to become a nurse, following in my mum’s footsteps. However, my career took a different path, I was very queasy around blood and needles in my younger years and just felt I couldn’t sign up to nursing when I left school.
“I have given this lots of thought over the years and many of my friends tell me I would have made a great nurse. I am kind, caring, compassionate, can interact and engage with people naturally and am generally very calm.
“In January 2020, before we went into lockdown I decided I wanted to do some volunteering in a hospital. It was another way of being close to the NHS that I had been missing all these years.”
Fiona volunteered with NHS Lothian for a year, based in an Oncology ward in the Western General Hospital and spent her time providing refreshments, talking with and supporting patients and helping out with non-clinical duties.
“Volunteering really made me decide on a complete career change. I loved the personal one to one care for patients and found this really rewarding. The simplest of things make a difference to patients. I was able to share tips with them, for example if they were anxious or not sleeping well, I suggested the Headspace App.
“The staff are so busy they don’t have time to sit with patients who need support or are feeling nervous or upset. By me spending 1:1 time with patients this allows the staff to get on with the important work they have to do.”
Fiona is still new to her new role having starting nine weeks ago, “This is a whole new chapter in my life and one that I’m really looking forward to. You are never too old or too late to learn or do something different.
“If you had asked me in January 2020 would I ever take up a role in the NHS, the answer would have been no. I’d have continued working with Standard Life until I was 55 then retired and decided what I wanted to do around volunteering/other activities.”
NHS Lothian currently has 625 volunteers all giving 2 or more hours a week of their time.
Jane Greenacer, Head of volunteering is always impressed by the willingness to help out across all sites. Jane said: “Since NHS Lothian last celebrated Volunteers’ Week 1316 volunteers have supported our work. Most of them giving considerably more than our minimum commitment of two hours a week for 6 months. Collectively volunteers have given over 100,000 hours of support across our acute hospitals and community sites.
“It is not just the volume of the contribution that counts it is the quality and while the figures are impressive what impresses me more is the warmth, kindness, enthusiasm, laughter and professionalism the volunteers bring with them.
“Patients, visitors, and staff gain so much from the support of volunteers and volunteering should be transformational for all involved. I am always delighted to hear stories like Fiona’s, or of the young people who have gained a place at university to study nursing, Physiotherapy or medicine. It is also a pleasure to meet a Charge Nurse to talk about volunteers and for her to tell me that she knows all about it as she volunteered 10 years ago.”
For more information on the roles available and how to apply check: https://www.nhslothian.scot/GetInvolved/Volunteering/Pages/default.aspx
