Volunteers sign up to help despite confusion

HEALTH Secretary Vaughan Gething has responded to questions over Wales’ volunteering scheme.

More than 500,000 people quickly signed up for a volunteering scheme in England called GoodSAM.

However, due to health being a devolved issue a separate scheme was needed in Wales, but its creation has been fraught with confusion.

Mr Gething initially last week said that councils are co-ordinating efforts for the NHS volunteering in Wales, but then the Welsh Government advice changed to asking people to go on the Volunteering Wales website or call 0300 111 0124. This led to huge amounts of people who were desperate to help unable to do so.

In the Senedd yesterday Mr Gething pointed the figure away from Welsh Government dithering as instead at other elected representatives.

He said: “Part of the challenge was that there was, I think, a misunderstanding in the way that the England-only scheme was launched. Some of our colleagueelected representatives in Wales didn’t understand that there was, simply, an England-only scheme and not a scheme that was designed and delivered by the four governments across the UK.”

He added that 30,000 people had managed to navigate the contradictory advice to sign up.

He added: “We’ve had a really significant response from people in Wales, so, whilst there’s been some confusions over the headline messages that are being played at, actually, lots of people in Wales have found a way to go to be able to volunteer within their local communities in either smaller groups that have been set up, but also through the national volunteering Wales portal.

“So, we’ve got over 30,000 people registered as volunteers, and within the last week we’ve had a reach of a 1,000 people a day registering to be volunteers to support people in their local community.”