King’s Health Partners Global Volunteering Scheme

There are exciting opportunities for King’s Health Partners staff (clinical and non-clinical) to volunteer time and skills with King’s Global Health Partnerships (KGHP).

We warmly welcome interest from staff – clinical or non-clinical - who are looking to spend a period of time volunteering overseas in one of the four partner countries (Sierra Leone, Somaliland, Zambia, and Democratic Republic of Congo) or volunteer in a UK-based capacity. There are a range of ways in which you can engage with KGHP, both in the UK and overseas.

Volunteers are at the centre of our partnerships. Without you, we could not carry out the work we do. Our volunteers come from a variety of professional backgrounds; they are often experienced clinicians, but may also have a background in academia, management, and administration. The support they provide can take many forms, including remote support from the UK, short term engagements such as running training courses, and longer-term placements in-country. Virtual or remote mentoring and capacity development has always been a feature of our work and has become easier since the Covid-19 pandemic.

Why volunteer?

There is strong evidence that health partnerships like ours don’t only benefit people in low-resource settings. They also bring real benefit to NHS staff and services. Among others, these benefits include the opportunity to develop:

• Leadership skills
• Skills in interdisciplinary team working
• Knowledge and skills in innovation and quality improvement
• Clinical and teaching experience
• Cross-cultural experience and experience of managing diversity (highly relevant for King’s Health Partners staff working in the diverse communities of South London)
• Personal resilience and efficiency – including an enhanced ability to stay calm and make good quality decisions
• Renewed energy for tackling the challenges in improving NHS patient outcomes.

The three NHS Foundation Trusts within King’s Health Partners (Guy's and St Thomas’ now incorporating Royal Brompton and Harefield, King’s College Hospital, and South London and the Maudsley) alongside university colleagues at King’s College London, place a high value on supporting staff to volunteer with the partnerships, as part of their personal learning and development. There are various ways in which NHS organisations can facilitate participation, please contact KGHP on kghp@kcl.ac.uk if you would like to discuss the options. 

Our offer to volunteers

You can find the list of current opportunities and the support KGHP provides to volunteers here.

Our ethos and expectations of volunteers

Alongside having impact, our approach to partnership is a central component to our success. We believe that KGHP can make a distinctive contribution because:

• We bring the health, academic and development communities together, drawing on the strengths of each.
• We work in partnership with local, public sector organisations. To us, this means:
• We work by invitation working alongside our partners in all our work
• We are embedded within our partner organisations and communities
• We are responsive to our partners’ needs and priorities and flexible as these change
• We engage as peers and understand health systems
• We are trusted because we are consistent and deliver what we promise
• We experience mutual benefit through engagement with our partners.
• We are committed for the long term, because real impact takes time.
• We strive for the highest levels of rigour in everything we do. This enables us to achieve meaningful and lasting change.

We expect all volunteers, whether working overseas or in the UK, to be ambassadors for the above values in all of their activities. Our partnership work requires people with a positive attitude who are open-minded, flexible and able to quickly learn and adapt their approach in fast-moving and sometimes challenging environments. We also have a code of conduct which all volunteers are required to sign upon joining the team. Individual roles often have particular person specifications (eg qualifications, amount of experience), which is included in each individual role advert.