Volunteers in Adult Social Care (VASC)

• Research type

  Research Study

• Full title

  Volunteers in Adult Social Care (VASC): An evaluation of the national volunteer responders scheme

• IRAS ID

  336258

• Contact name

  Kalpa Kharicha

• Contact email

  kalpa.kharicha@kcl.ac.uk

• Sponsor organisation

  King's College London

• Duration of Study in the UK

  0 years, 11 months, 28 days

• Research summary

  In June 2023, the Government introduced a new scheme in England to increase the numbers of volunteers in adult social care services. ‘NHS and Care Volunteer Responders’ builds on the NHS volunteer scheme set up during the Covid-19 pandemic. In this new scheme, an online system will ‘match’ potential volunteers with care providers and organisations who wish to recruit more volunteers.

  This study, which is taking place over 18 months, aims to:
  1) understand what volunteers and care providers think of the online system, and their experiences of using it,
  2) see if the new system helps more people volunteer in adult social care and the types of support / activities they provide as volunteers,
  3) find out if having more volunteers makes a difference to care providers, care workers, volunteers and people who use adult social care services and their friends and family.

  There are two phases to the study, this application relates to the qualitative element of the second phase. The first phase of qualitative work is interviews with volunteer organisations, adult social care umbrella organisations, and adult social care providers for early, broad insights into the scheme (We have been granted ethical approval to undertake the first phase of the study from KCL ethics committee). The second phase of qualitative work is interviews with adult social care managers, ASC staff, volunteers, and service users and family/friends. They will be asked about experiences and opinions of the scheme and volunteering in adult social care more generally. There is a quantitive element of the study, which takes place across the two phases of the study, and involves the analysis of data collected by the digital platform (It has been confirmed by the KCL Research Governance Office that ethical approval is not required for this, as it is analysis of anonymous pre-existing data).

• REC name

  West Midlands - Coventry & Warwickshire Research Ethics Committee

• REC reference

  24/WM/0029

• Date of REC Opinion

  11 Apr 2024

• REC opinion

  Further Information Favourable Opinion