{"id":76367,"date":"2025-10-12T19:49:11","date_gmt":"2025-10-12T19:49:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/76367\/"},"modified":"2025-10-12T19:49:11","modified_gmt":"2025-10-12T19:49:11","slug":"gloucester-woman-says-voluntary-role-in-nhs-life-changing-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/76367\/","title":{"rendered":"Gloucester woman says voluntary role in NHS &#8216;life-changing&#8217;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Bea SwallowWest of England<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/grey-placeholder.png\" class=\"sc-5340b511-0 hagXkB hide-when-no-script\" aria-label=\"image unavailable\"\/><img decoding=\"async\"   src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/94d3d1c0-a464-11f0-8c79-29eeaf2ea52d.jpg.webp.webp\" loading=\"eager\" alt=\"Helpforce Angie Duffin is wearing a bright red blouse and standing in front of a wooden garden fence on a sunny day. She has long wavy, cherry coloured hair and is wearing a red hospital lanyard round her neck.\" class=\"sc-5340b511-0 bGQwLJ\"\/>Helpforce<\/p>\n<p>Angie Duffin joined the volunteering scheme to fulfil a lifelong ambition to work in the NHS<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 bJoRPJ\">A military wife says joining an NHS volunteering programme felt &#8220;like a whole new chapter&#8221; and &#8220;a really big deal&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 bJoRPJ\">Angie Duffin, from Barnwood in Gloucester, had always wanted to work in the NHS but her husband&#8217;s military career required them to frequently relocate.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 bJoRPJ\">The 50-year-old has now started a paid role in pathology after taking part in the Volunteer to Career scheme at Gloucestershire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust. <\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 bJoRPJ\">&#8220;I can&#8217;t tell you the impact the programme has had on my life,&#8221; she said. &#8220;It&#8217;s been a really big deal for me, it has been life-changing.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 bJoRPJ\">Ms Duffin married Tim, a soldier in the Royal Engineers, in the early-2000s and the couple have four children. <\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 bJoRPJ\">When her husband retired in 2019 and their youngest child started college a year ago, she decided &#8220;it was my turn&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 bJoRPJ\">In October 2024, she signed up to volunteer one day a week in the Emergency Department of Gloucestershire Royal Hospital.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 bJoRPJ\">By January, Ms Duffin was invited to apply for the trust&#8217;s Volunteer to Career scheme working in pathology &#8211; the study of diseases. <\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 bJoRPJ\">&#8220;The pathology department is clearly the place where I belong. This feels like a whole new chapter of my life,&#8221; she said.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/grey-placeholder.png\" class=\"sc-5340b511-0 hagXkB hide-when-no-script\" aria-label=\"image unavailable\"\/><img decoding=\"async\"   src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/c67dea60-a4fc-11f0-9779-cd87a9626924.jpg.webp.webp\" loading=\"lazy\" alt=\"Gloucestershire Royal Hospital The exterior entrance of Gloucestershire Royal Hospital. It is a large angular building clad in blue horizontal panels. There is a 3D sign on the top of the building and a pedestrian crossing outside the front.  It is a sunny day.\" class=\"sc-5340b511-0 bGQwLJ\"\/>Gloucestershire Royal Hospital<\/p>\n<p>Ms Duffin volunteered in the Emergency Department of Gloucestershire Royal Hospital<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 bJoRPJ\">The Volunteer to Career scheme is a national NHS programme funded by Health Education England and run in partnership with healthcare charity Helpforce.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 bJoRPJ\">The NHS has 107,000 job vacancies and the programme aims to help volunteers progress into paid staff roles.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 bJoRPJ\">Helpforce said 48 different NHS organisations across England have taken part in the Volunteer to Career programme.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Bea SwallowWest of England Helpforce Angie Duffin joined the volunteering scheme to fulfil a lifelong ambition to work&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":76368,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[103,397,396,61,60],"class_list":{"0":"post-76367","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-healthcare","8":"tag-health","9":"tag-health-care","10":"tag-healthcare","11":"tag-ie","12":"tag-ireland"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76367","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=76367"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76367\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/76368"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=76367"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=76367"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=76367"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}