RVS Retail closures in Sheffield

Last week my teenage son had a hospital appointment at the Royal Hallamshire Hospital and so I took time off work to meet him there. I got there early meaning I had time to call into the Royal Voluntary Service café on B Floor, complete with its blackboard with a hand-chalked notice “Due to RVS closing stock may be limited”.

There has been a fair degree of outrage and an even greater degree of sadness in Sheffield at the news that most of the RVS café and shop outlets in Royal Hallamshire and Northern General Hospitals will be closing at the end of March and being replaced with a variety of franchised brands. As someone who worked for seven years with RVS, including for around four of those being overall responsible for the Sheffield Retail outlets, I was probably less surprised than most. Even a few years back the mood music in meetings with the Trust was drifting in that direction.

Although it’s a while now since I left RVS many of the faces are still the same – both the paid staff and the benevolent army of volunteers. Many of the paid and unpaid staff have been there for many years and it was heartbreaking to sit and chat with them in light of the imminent closure. There are lots of reasons why I – and so many people in Sheffield – mourn their passing. The volunteers to a person are absolutely focused on supporting the hospital, its patients and visitors. Some of that support is financial; the more stuff that gets sold, the more RVS can work with the hospital to provide better services – whether by e.g. contributing towards scanners and other vital equipment or by funding new volunteer-powered services in the community, e.g. by supporting older people leaving hospital and returning to their communities.

People in Sheffield - and elsewhere - will tell you that a key benefit of the RVS cafes is that the volunteers will always take the time to chat with patients and with visitors who are distressed or down due to their loved one’s illness. Many of the volunteers are hugely skilled and experienced in spotting in an instant where this support is needed.

Equally important are the benefits to the volunteers themselves. In my experience many of the volunteers are older people who use their volunteering experience to keep themselves well, and to ensure that they themselves don’t become lonely and isolated in older age. At the other end of the scale some volunteers are school leavers (and some still at school) gaining valuable experience of volunteering and honing their people skills.

So why is it all closing? I have worked closely with key personnel at the Trust and am here to tell you that none of them have two heads and breathe fire. I am of course not party to the tendering process but I can hazard a few guesses at why changes are being made. I am assuming that the franchises can offer a better lease return at a time when all Trusts are strapped for cash. However it is also about the need for patients and visitors to have a more comprehensive customer experience at times when they need it. Increasingly that comes down to having longer opening times and a more comprehensive offer. Whilst RVS has done lots to deal with the latter, the former will always remain a challenge.

The indefatigable and fiercely committed manager of RVS’s Sheffield services said to me when I visited “I’m sure we could have delivered longer opening hours”. But in my experience that’s a tricky ask, particularly when the workforce consists of a major cohort of older volunteers. If a café closes at e.g. 9.00 on a cold, dark winter’s night it is understandable if volunteers are less than happy to cover that shift.

The Trust is, I’m sure, very clear on the value of volunteering (and has a very large volunteer contingent of its own) and won’t have taken lightly the decision to not go with RVS. They will have foreseen the media (front page of the local paper) and public backlash but will have made their decision for valid business reasons. RVS is I understand keeping and upgrading its outlets at Weston Park Hospital and keeping some small presence at NGH. But what I would say is that it is so important that the Trust find some way to celebrate and honour the generations of RVS volunteers who have worked tirelessly in the sites where RVS is moving out. This should take the form of some sort of Thank You event for current and past volunteers and staff but also perhaps some sort of permanent memorial celebrating the countless hours of tea and support so freely given by so many people.