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

1. Care and Compassion – The role of the Voluntary & Community Sector (VCS) in End of Life Care Ben Smith Policy Development Officer Voluntary Action LeicesterShire

2. 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

3. 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

4. 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 • Elderly • Employment Support • Environment • Faith/Religion • Families • Family Support • Gay/Lesbian • Grant Giving • Health • Health & Social Care • HIV/AIDS • Housing • Immigration • International Dev. • Learning Disability • Leisure • Men • Mental Health • Parenting • Physical Disability • Play • Public Health/Health Promotion • Racial Harassment • Relationships • Self Help • Sensory Disability • Sexual Abuse • Single Parents • Social Activities • Sport • Support • Training • Volunteering • Women • Youth

5. 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

6. 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

7. Economic Value of the Voluntary and Community Sector • 39% of the UK’s 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)

8. 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 children’s hospices is typically much lower than for adult hospices, and is on average 15% of running costs (HtH 2010b)

9. 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%. 

10. Thank you Ben Smith ben.s@valonline.org.uk 0116 2575029