With another winter crisis in the NHS fully upon us, many in the voluntary sector are once again waiting for the call to provide resources to help our hospitals.

A year ago, that call was answered by the Red Cross, when its chief executive described the situation as a humanitarian crisis. But what assistance can the voluntary and charity sector provide, and even if it could, should it?

This is a question with which the public sector has struggled for some time. Local councils have suffered cuts at an unprecedented scale and have increasingly looked to charitable activity to support services they used to provide.

But the notion that volunteers can save the NHS is misplaced. If the problem is a shortage of beds and ambulances, with a dearth of doctors and nurses, volunteers are not going to get anyone very far.

Volunteers are particularly good at helping with less technical tasks that do not carry a lot of risk and that are often about relationships. Volunteers can often do this better than public servants who – inevitably and rightly – are tied up in formal systems that can make it difficult to build the relationships that are so important for patients.

Read the full article on volunteers and public programs by Dan Corry at The Guardian