Women's Royal Voluntary Service Medal

• Name — Women's Royal Voluntary Service Medal (Women's Voluntary Service Medal) • Presenter — the Monarch of the United Kingdom and the Commonwealth realms • Country — United Kingdom • Type — Long service medal • Eligibility — Royal Voluntary Service members • Awarded For — Fifteen years service • Status — Current • Clasps — Additional twelve year periods • Established — 1961 • Firstawarded — 1961 • Precedence Label — Order of wear • Higher — Voluntary Medical Service Medal • Lower — South African Medal for War Services • Image2 — Second award clasp • Illustration — x32px • Caption2 — Ribbon bar

The Women’s Voluntary Services for Air Raid Precautions was established in 1938, in anticipation of impending hostilities. They played a key role on the home front during the Second World War, most notably during the Blitz, including in the evacuation of civilians from urban areas. After the war, the organisation evolved to assisting and caring for isolated and lonely people, particularly the elderly. Renamed the Royal Voluntary Service in 2013, it still serves as back-up to professional services in times of crisis by running rest centres and providing emergency feeding to members of the public, fire and rescue crews and police.

The Women's Voluntary Service Medal was instituted on 23 March 1961. It was renamed the Women's Royal Voluntary Service Medal when Queen Elizabeth II, patron of the Women's Voluntary Service since 1956, granted the organisation the prefix "Royal" in 1966. Although the organisation was further renamed the Royal Voluntary Service in 2013, dropping 'women' from the title, the name of the medal did not change.

In the order of wear prescribed by the British Central Chancery of the Orders of Knighthood, the Women's Royal Voluntary Service Medal takes precedence after the Voluntary Medical Service Medal and before the South African Medal for War Services.