At Friends of Moorfields, we want volunteering to be something that gives back to our volunteers too. Sometimes it leads to new friendships. Sometimes it leads to new skills. And sometimes even to a new career.

In 2025, we supported 30 volunteers in finding a new position at and beyond the hospital. Today we are chatting with Parul, who used to volunteer as a hand-holder, and has recently joined the Friends of Moorfields as a volunteer support officer.

Parul, can you tell us a bit about yourself and how you ended up volunteering at Moorfields?

“Sure! I was born in India but lived in Kenya most of my life. I got married and came to the UK in 1998 and worked for the Post Office and then the Post Office inside Co-op here in Old Street for 25 years. It was a customer-facing job that I was very passionate about, because I’m a people’s person.

But life changed and I took up a counselling course after my daughter passed away. This put me on a different journey altogether, which in turn led me to volunteering. I first volunteered with Age UK for two years, where I was a telephone befriender. It helped me apply my counselling skills, because you need a lot of empathy and compassion to understand somebody who is lonely and get them to open up to you.

So, here I was, in a really good mood about my course and then Fleur from Friends of Moorfields came into Co-op and she asked: ‘What are you so happy about?’ I told her about my course, she told me about hand-holding, and then one thing led to another.”

Thank you for sharing that. So how did volunteering tie in with your career aspirations?

“It was always my dream to work in a hospital, but my education took me in a different direction. I was excited about hand-holding being a patient-facing experience and going into the theatre. I had radial keratotomy when I was young; I didn’t know anything about the procedure. Now, I’ve seen doctors perform surgeries, I look things up, I read more about the latest procedures and what they can do against sight loss.

But what struck me most was the level of care I witnessed. I entered rooms full of people who were anxious about their procedures, but by simply asking them, ‘How are you today’, I could take some of that fear away from them.

Hand-holding became such a beautiful journey. I used my active listening skills from counselling. It’s incredibly rewarding to feel what a patient is feeling and then reframe their fears and give them that unconditional positive regard that they are in safe hands.

Volunteering became my favourite day of the week. I would never take a day off unless I couldn’t help it. I was more aligned with volunteering than I was with my job.”

How did you go about changing jobs?

“I tried applying for multiple roles at Moorfields, but none of them were quite the right fit for my experience. I remember seeing an email about the volunteer support officer job just before going to bed – and I wrote my application that same night with just my lamp on!

It was something that felt right, and I felt confident about: I had literally been in their shoes, I could support them, and I could understand their challenges.

I am very happy in my role and feel completely aligned. There are so many familiar faces: my customers from the Post Office have turned into colleagues and patients. It’s amazing to be part of the Moorfields team. Even as part of the charity, I feel very connected to Moorfields in every way.”

You’ve been on quite the journey; and that journey doesn’t feel finished yet!

“Yes, the journey continues through my counselling studies. I started at level 1 and am now at level 5. The hospital is offering me an opportunity to continue my work placement in counselling too. It feels like when I started on this journey as a hand-holder, I had no idea where I was going to end up. But my counselling has been the red thread throughout.

The volunteer support officer role has given me a different perspective, because I feel it incorporates it all. Because supporting volunteers is just as important as supporting patients or anybody at work. And that level of understanding I have now, I would not have had through just the course.”

That’s amazing. As a final question, if you had to pick one thing during your time as a volunteer that you’ve taken with you in your professional or even personal life, what would that be?

“The most valuable thing that I have taken from my experience was the level of compassion and empathy. That isn’t something that just comes overnight. It comes with practice. Just stepping into someone else’s shoes really isn’t that easy.

But once you do, you reach that level of empathy and compassion that allows you to truly connect with others. Supporting patients in theatre works on the same principle as building rapport with volunteers. You want them to feel they are valued. Volunteers don’t come in because they have to, but because they want to. It’s selfless. And that same kind of kindness is core to the level of care to patients at Moorfields.”

Are you interested in volunteering at Moorfields? Find our more and fill out the form on our website today!