Two alumnae share their stories of volunteering in the time of COVID

Volunteering for Covid-19

Retirement brings a feeling of ‘all trained up, nowhere to go’: a vast library of knowledge and understanding floating around in a once-respected head, looking for somewhere to put it. With Covid, I hoped someone would organise volunteer counselling for NHS staff, (I don’t do organising myself), but they didn’t. Except one friend found me somewhere, and a nurse signed up to be ‘my voluntary work’.

It was supposed to be time limited, but it has been so interesting and so rewarding that we continue. She was considering leaving the profession when she looked for help; she is now considering leading it. And my head has returned to functioning; I’m even offering a course from next September, for people living or working with neurological conditions, which is my speciality.

Julia Segal (NC 1968)

Once a nurse, always a nurse

When the COVID-19 call for volunteers came, I wasn’t sure how to respond. I work internationally, aiming to support front-line nurses and midwives by helping their leaders to get to top tables, and to be effective once there. Right now, online from my home office, I’m running the first ever leadership programme for midwives in India, where the pandemic is rampant. This work can feel remote from my struggling local health services. So where and how can I be most useful?

From global to local, I’ve volunteered at our local food bank for four years. ‘Don’t you dare abandon us!’, a colleague said. ‘We need your nursing skills here!’ And she was right. So much of my contribution is based on what I learned in nursing – whether in clinical care, leadership training, policy work, writing, or editing Nursing Times.

Early in the pandemic I researched how to protect volunteers and clients, so we were primed when lockdown came. Even Sister would have admired my seminar on hand-washing. I discussed emerging evidence with the team. To mask or not to mask? Would we contract it by bagging up apples? Crucially, how could we make our coffee safely? I also masterminded the switch to home deliveries, dispatching supplies weekly to around 100 adults and 60 children in need.

Nurses’ and midwives’ stock of skills and knowledge produces economic and social value. It provides an additional return on public investment when we apply our skills and knowledge in other roles – in our private lives as carers and unpaid health advisers to families, friends and communities. This concept of ‘nursing capital’ was introduced in 2010 by the Prime Minister’s Commission on the Future of Nursing and Midwifery in England, on which I worked. What better Covid legacy could there be than nurses and midwives finally receiving, instead of doorstep applause and a 1% pay rise, the recognition, support and rewards that they and society deserve?

Jane Salvage (NC 1972)