Hospital volunteer programs are losing recruits to lengthy onboarding processes and blanket training requirements while managers struggle with inadequate budgets, minimal administrative support, and outdated policies.
Bureaucratic onboarding processes, inflexible training requirements, and blanket safety mandates are driving prospective volunteers away from NSW hospitals, with one volunteer manager estimating that half of their recruits are lost before they can begin work.
The Volunteering in Health report, commissioned by the Centre for Volunteering with NSW government support, revealed how requirements designed for paid healthcare workers were being imposed on volunteers regardless of their roles, creating delays of several months and reducing the capacity of some services.
The report drew on 11 focus groups involving 135 participants across NSW, including a dedicated group of public hospital volunteer managers.
Participants described criminal record checks, Working With Children Checks, health assessments, vaccinations, and induction and mandatory annual training requirements that could take months to complete.
One participant said a two- or three-month onboarding process caused many prospective volunteers to abandon their applications, while another manager estimated losing half of their recruits when a health facility imposed additional requirements on top of the organisation’s own processes.
“These people come forward and volunteer out of the goodness of their heart, and if it takes them two or three months to get on board, it’s too long. They just move on,” one participant said.
In public hospitals, participants said statewide and local health district mandates often prevented volunteer managers from tailoring requirements to the risks associated with particular roles.
A new rule requiring volunteers working with children to operate in pairs halved the capacity of one paediatric volunteer team.
Following the death of a paid staff member in another health district, eight hours of face-to-face violence management training was extended to volunteers, including those working with individual clients who had already undergone risk assessments.
While participants accepted the need for appropriate safety requirements, they questioned applying identical obligations to volunteers performing very different duties.
One smaller country hospital offered mandatory fire training on a single day each year, potentially excluding volunteers who missed the session for the following 12 months.
Another participant questioned whether a hospital wayfinder should face the same onboarding requirements as someone volunteering in a dementia unit.
“I’m giving up my time, and you want me to go through all this? I’ve never had to go through this much to get a paid job,” one volunteer said.
The report recommended eliminating duplicated checks, introducing portable credentials, and matching training and screening requirements to the risks of individual volunteer roles.
The potential losses were significant.
According to the 2025 NSW State of Volunteering survey findings incorporated into the report, health volunteers contributed a median of 95 hours annually, compared with 54 hours for volunteers in other sectors.
Managers stretched across hundreds of volunteers
Beyond recruitment barriers, the report identified substantial gaps in the resources available to manage and support the volunteer workforce.
One hospital volunteer manager described an organisation with an entire human resources department supporting approximately 2500 paid staff, but just one manager responsible for 600 volunteers.
Another organisation had human resources and people-and-culture support for 40 employees, while a single person managed between 250 and 300 volunteers.
“And the sad part is we often don’t have any administrative support at all in the volunteer space in NSW Health. So, we have to be the manager, but also the admin,” one participant said.
Volunteer managers described operating with little or no budget, limited administrative assistance, and insufficient recognition within their organisations.
One manager reported having no budget for managing volunteers.
In the public hospital setting, another manager’s salary was funded through the volunteer service’s own shop, with the position moved on to a contract because there was uncertainty about whether the service could raise enough money to cover the salary.
About half the managers in one public hospital focus group indicated they worked unpaid overtime.
The report also described the difficulties associated with short-term project funding, with volunteer coordinators repeatedly required to apply for grants and collect data to demonstrate how funding had been spent.
Where funding ended without replacement, programs could contract or close, or managers were expected to deliver more with fewer resources.
The report recommended funding volunteer coordination as an ongoing core operational activity rather than relying on project grants or fundraising.
It also called for administrative support proportionate to the number of volunteers being managed, using the resources provided to paid workforces as a benchmark.
Related
Policy dating back to 2011
The report also raised concerns about outdated NSW Health policies governing volunteers.
Participants described policies that had not been updated for 10 or 15 years, with some failing to specify whether their requirements applied to volunteers.
One manager said the National Standards for Volunteer Involvement were referenced in policy but not applied in practice.
The report specifically recommended replacing NSW Health’s 2011 policy directive on volunteer management with an updated policy clearly defining the requirements applying to volunteers and developing the associated guidelines and frameworks.
It also recommended consulting volunteer managers before introducing new requirements and providing exemptions where blanket mandates were inappropriate.
The report warned that volunteers provided companionship, continuity, and personal support that the funded healthcare system could not always deliver.
Its authors acknowledged that the focus group findings were not statistically representative of all health volunteering across NSW, but said the experiences illustrated the challenges facing those who delivered and coordinated volunteer services.
The report’s recommendations reflected the views of focus group participants rather than official NSW government policy positions. Read the 2026 Volunteering in Health report here.