Volunteers' Week 2024

Join us as we celebrate 40 years of Volunteers’ Week and look to inspire more people to make a difference. During the week, we will be introducing you to some of the amazing volunteers from the 500 strong team!

On Tuesday we held a delightful lunch complete with games and a disco, funded by North West Anglia Hospitals' Charity!  In the afternoon, we awarded certificates and badges to our dedicated long-serving volunteers.

Thank you to all of our incredible volunteers for your incredible contributions!  #VolunteersWeek

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Anna Farmiloe – PCH

Anna Farmiloe – PCH

“I volunteer at the hospital because I would like to gain a part-time, paid admin role in the future and I am really interested in medical and healthcare issues. I realised that the hospital would be the ideal place to come to develop the admin skills I already had and to be able to use and improve them. I also enjoy the social side and all of the volunteers and staff are so nice and helpful. Volunteering here helps me to get out of the house and feel like I am making a difference.

“The thing I like most is that as well as the variety of tasks that I do in my joint wayfinding and admin role, there is always the opportunity to get involved with new initiatives and have new experiences. For example, I have had the opportunity to become the mentor for the Deafblind Manual Alphabet course. This is something that is really important to me because I have a sight loss myself, I can empathise with those who have a more severe sight loss or other issues and the barriers (especially the communication barriers) that they face. It has been so rewarding to have been able to help so many volunteers communicate using the Deafblind Manual Alphabet and thus be able to help reduce the isolation a deafblind patient would have in our hospital.

“As well as watching all the medical programmes on TV, in my working life I have always worked for disability organisations. I would really like to be able to improve life for those with sight loss. I have also learnt British Sign Language to be able to help the Deaf community. My other passion is languages. I lived in a French-speaking country for one year when I was a student and I have been taking classes in Spanish for about 10 years now. Maybe I will try a non-European language soon!”