Job overview

This is an exciting opportunity to gain valuable experience of volunteering in the NHS supporting the staff on the ward.

Main duties of the job

• Tidying patient’s bedside table before mealtimes and ensuring table is within patients reach
• Helping to take meals to the patient’s bedside and assisting them with their meals i.e. opening food packaging like yoghurts, sandwiches, drinks cartons
• Offering to make patients a drink and encouraging fluid intake generally
• Helping with recreational activities of all kinds such as crosswords puzzles, games etc
• Befriending patients by talking to them or reading the newspaper
• Going shopping for small items from the onsite shop
• Offering clerical support to the ward clerk (non-confidential information), taking messages or running errands to other wards or departments
• Assisting with the library trolley service around the wards
• Always maintaining confidentiality

You Must Not

• Attend your role if you are unwell, please ring the ward in advance and advise you cannot attend your session.
• Enter wards/side rooms signposted ‘Barrier Nursing’ as the patient may be infectious and put you at risk
• Under no circumstances are you able to assist a patient with dressing
• Do not go behind a curtained area
• You must not have contact with blood, urine or vomit
• You must not lift a patient or assist them with toilet needs
• You must not administer any medication

Working for our organisation

Oxleas offers a wide range of NHS healthcare services to people in community and secure environment settings. Our services include community health care such as district nursing and speech and language therapy, care for people with learning disabilities and mental health care such as psychiatry, nursing and therapies. Our multidisciplinary teams look after people of all ages and we work in close partnership with other parts of the NHS, local councils and the voluntary sector and through our new provider collaboratives. Our 4,300 members of staff work in many different settings including hospitals, clinics, prisons, secure hospitals, children’s centres, schools and people’s homes.

We have over 125 sites in a variety of locations in the South of England. In London we operate within the Boroughs of Bexley, Bromley Greenwich and into Kent. We manage hospital sites including Queen Mary’s Hospital, Sidcup and Memorial Hospital, Woolwich, as well as the Bracton Centre, our medium secure unit for people with mental health needs. We are the largest NHS provider of prison health services providing healthcare to prisons within Devon, Dorset, Bristol, Wiltshire and Gloucestershire, Kent and South London. We are proud of the care we provide and our people.

Our purpose is to improve lives by providing the best possible care to our patients and their families.  This is strengthened by our new values:

• We’re Kind
• We’re
• We Listen
• We Care