The North East Ambulance Service is looking for volunteer recruits who would like to make a difference in the region.

The service has launched a new campaign to find more community heroes, encouraging people to ‘feel good by doing good’ by volunteering as a hospital porter or an ambulance car service driver.

Chief operating officer Paul Liversidge said: “Our porters and ambulance car service, like all of our volunteers, provide an invaluable service to our patients and enable us to concentrate our resources on patients who need us most.

“Our volunteers are aged between 17 and 70 and come from a variety of backgrounds, all with different reasons for volunteering at NEAS, whether it be wanting to help people in their local community, give something back to the NHS, gain experience in a healthcare environment or meet new people.

“Whatever your reason for joining us, we’d love to hear from you.”

Hospital porters are the first face a patient will encounter when they need help to access services.

Volunteers will meet patients, make them feel at ease and help them get to their required destination.

Laura Atkinson, aged 20, is a volunteer porter at the RVI in Newcastle.

She said: “I enjoy having the opportunity to give back to the community while being able to gain experience in a healthcare environment.”

The service is also looking for ACS drivers to provide a personal service to patients who are unable to make their own way to hospital, transporting them to and from appointments in their own vehicles, which enables ambulance crews to transport patients who are unable to travel to hospital in a car.

Last year, volunteer porters helped 2,103 people and drivers completed 148,000 patient journeys.

Volunteers will be offered opportunities like shadowing ambulance crews and training in areas such as IT and first aid. Although both roles are voluntary, porters are reimbursed for out of pocket expenses and ACS drivers are able to claim mileage expenses.