An evaluation of patients’ and staff members’ satisfaction with, and knowledge of, a volunteer service

Abstract

Kathy Stiller, Kathy Benger, Anthea Oatey Aims: Volunteers provide valuable services across the community, including healthcare organisations. The purpose of this prospective study was to determine patients’ and staff members’ level of satisfaction with, and knowledge of, a volunteer service at a rehabilitation centre. The volunteer services provided to patients included coordinating television hire, doing laundry, ward visiting, escorting patients to appointments outside the rehabilitation centre, and running a kiosk for patients, staff and visitors. Methods: Purpose-designed surveys were used to investigate the level of satisfaction and knowledge. Patients who had received services from the volunteers, nursing and social work staff who referred patients to the service, and senior management, medical and therapy staff were eligible for participation. Ninety-seven patients and 54 nursing, 6 social work, 23 senior managerial, 5 medical and 20 therapy staff participated in the study. Findings: Overall, patients were highly satisfied with the volunteers’ services they received in terms of the helpfulness of the services, and the personal qualities of the volunteers. Staff members were also highly satisfied with the volunteers’ services in terms of the types of services they provided to patients, the referral process, response times and personal qualities of the volunteers. The level of knowledge of patients and staff members regarding the range of services available was variable. Conclusions: A volunteer service provided at a rehabilitation centre was highly rated by both patients and staff members. However, the level of knowledge about the range of services was not always high, providing an opportunity for the volunteers to raise their profile across the rehabilitation centre in the future.