Worcestershire hospice highlights important role volunteers play in keeping services running
St Richard's Hospice say volunteers gave up over 110,000 hours of their time in 2025
A Worcestershire hospice which cares for adults with an illness that cannot be cured while also supporting their families has said its volunteers play such a key role in making sure they can continue to deliver their services to those who need it.
St Richard's Hospice is shining a spotlight on people who help with the running of their services as part of Volunteers' Week which runs from the 1-7 June.
The independent charity, which was set-up in 1984, provides help each year to more than 3,000 patients, family members and bereaved people.
In total, it said its 918 volunteers gave up 110,708 hours of their time last year, covering areas such as its warehouse along with its 20 charity shops across the county.
Chair of the trustees at St Richard's Hospice, Jenny Cowpe, said without them things would be very different.
"Our volunteers allow us to provide even more services than we could do on a limited budget," she said.
"To put that into context with the numbers to demonstrate how vital their input is, we have 240 paid staff at the hospice providing our clinical, our shops and all our support services, we have 918 volunteers, that's almost a ratio of four to one volunteers to paid staff.
"So I think you can see that without them, we would simply not be operating and offering the clinical services or the support services that we do at the moment."
Chief executive Mike Wilkerson added he "can’t thank them enough" for the work and time they put in.