London-based charity promoting health and care volunteering wins top UK health award

Helpforce won the award for its work supporting NHS and community organisations to harness the untapped potential of volunteering to improve people’s health and wellbeing.

Passionate volunteers have always played a major role in health care services, but organisations often face challenges when seeking approval for programmes or getting them up and running. This means the full potential of tens of thousands of volunteers is not always realised. This is where Helpforce makes a difference, bridging the gap between organisations and volunteers by supporting services in delivering high-quality and impactful schemes, underpinned by expert know-how.

The award judges were especially impressed by the way the charity has supported large-scale volunteering initiatives, for example by helping people to ‘wait well’ for their treatment and surgery by making sure they have information and practical support such as rides to appointments; ‘recover well’ to assist people in staying healthy to avoid readmission to hospital; and ‘live well’ to prevent ill health in the future.

Following a rigorous selection and assessment process, Helpforce was chosen from a record number of award entries as one of the 10 winners of the 2025 GSK IMPACT Awards. Now in its 28th year, the awards are delivered in partnership with leading health and care charity The King’s Fund. The awards are widely seen as a mark of excellence in the charity health sector and are designed to recognise outstanding small and medium-sized charities working to improve people’s health and wellbeing in the UK.

As an award winner, Helpforce will now receive £40,000 in unrestricted funding as well as a place on a highly sought-after leadership development programme provided by The King’s Fund.

The NHS Long Term Workforce Plan highlights that volunteers are crucial to the provision of timely and appropriate health services. However, NHS organisations face many challenges setting up effective volunteering schemes, and prospective volunteers might struggle to identify the right opportunity to match their skills and interests.

Helpforce was founded in 2017 to tackle these challenges and accelerate the scale and impact of volunteering in health care to improve outcomes for patients, staff and the health and care system.

Since 2023, Helpforce has supported 49 NHS partner organisations to secure additional funding, raising £3.5 million to invest in their volunteering programmes.

Through its three-year ‘Back to Health’ campaign, launched in 2022, the charity has engaged with 100 health care partners to establish dynamic volunteering services that collectively expect to support one million people with their wellbeing. Helpforce’s evaluations of volunteer programmes show that 82% of patients agreed volunteer support reduced their anxiety, 87% of health care staff agreed that volunteers improve the quality of service they can provide, and 90% of volunteers said volunteering gave them a sense of purpose.

While the financial context in which charities operate is increasingly challenging, the award judges were impressed by Helpforce’s innovative interventions to support NHS partners in designing volunteering schemes.

The award judges highlighted the success of the charity’s ‘Volunteer to Career’ programme, which was developed in response to workforce shortages in health care and offers career exploration opportunities to people while they are volunteering. Nearly three-quarters of participants from the most recent 28 organisations participating in the programme went on to secure employment or further education, while hospitals were able to benefit from new and diverse volunteers with local knowledge. Helpforce has recently developed a version of the Volunteer to Career programme for veterans and their spouses and is piloting a programme for refugees and asylum seekers.

Lisa Weaks, Senior Associate at The King’s Fund, said: "Helpforce is a unique and strategic organisation that is doing excellent work to help the NHS and other health and care partners grow and nurture their own volunteering programmes and increase the influence these have within their organisation.

"At a time when the NHS is severely stretched and tackling chronic workforce shortages, the charity’s tailored and innovative work plays a pivotal role in the delivery of patient care across the country. By not just setting up volunteering schemes but ensuring health and care organisations have the skills and capacity they need to sustain them, they have a lasting impact on each organisation they work with."

Commenting on the award, Amerjit Chohan, CEO of Helpforce, said:  "We are thrilled to receive the prestigious GSK Impact Award. It is a ringing endorsement of the impact we are having in driving forward high-quality, innovative and robust volunteering programmes that are transforming the health and wellbeing of people at scale. Not only do our initiatives provide enormous benefit to patients, they also play a crucial role in alleviating pressure on the squeezed health care workforce – boosting morale among doctors, nurses and support staff.

"We accept the award on behalf of all the health care organisations that have demonstrated vision and belief in partnering with us, as well as the many thousands of extraordinary volunteers who have donated their time and skills."

Developing leaders in the charity sector is a key aim of the GSK IMPACT Awards programme and all winners are invited to build on their success and take part in a tailored leadership development programme run by The King’s Fund.