In the wake of a National Secular Society attack on hospital chaplaincy, what is its real value to the NHS? asks Mark Woods.

ACCORDING to official figures released last month, the NHS employs 1,368,200 people – the largest number  in its history – and is the biggest employer in the country by far.

Only a tiny fraction of this workforce is made up of hospital chaplains. But the National Secular Society (NSS) said last week that this is still unacceptable.

It claims that chaplaincy costs the taxpayer £40 million a year. NSS president Terry Sanderson said that given a choice between paying for chaplains and paying for nurses or cleaners, people would choose the latter.

His answer is that since chaplaincy is for religious people, the Churches should stump up the money.

On the face of it, he has a case. The NHS is there to make people better. Should it really be providing spiritual care for its patients and staff, as well?

The answer from a surprising range of sources – including the Unite union, who described the NSS attack as ‘erroneous and simplistic’ –  is a resounding ‘Yes’.

NHS Trusts are required to have policies regarding spiritual care, and in almost all of them chaplaincy – usually provided mainly, though not exclusively, by Christian ministers – plays a valued part.

According to Jeff Gosden, a Baptist minister who’s lead chaplain at Musgrove Park Hospital in Taunton, ‘Chaplains offer a service to all faiths and none.

‘Sometimes I have a conversation with a patient who says, “I’m not religious, but…” and a whole raft of issues come to the fore.’

Trusts value chaplaincy services, he says, because they know chaplains address issues that others can’t. ‘Coming into hospital for any kind of investigation or treatment can be an anxious time, raising many questions, anxieties or fears. Chaplains respond with pastoral care to all people, whether they’re specifically religious or not.’

Do they provide value for money?  ‘It’s always difficult to quantify. But chaplains contribute a sense of well-being; if anxieties and fears aren’t resolved it affects people’s health.

‘I’m not saying it can reduce a person’s stay in hospital, but it makes a difference to people if they’re prepared by prayer, for instance, before an operation; or if they’re anxious about going into a rest home, or if they’ve lost their mobility.’

He’s understandably cautious about making claims for the therapeutic value of chaplaincy. But there’s a large body of evidence which shows very clearly that there’s a relationship between someone’s spiritual well-being and their physical health.

For instance, Professor Stephen Wright, editor of the journal Spirituality and Health International, said in an article for the Ekklesia think tank, ‘Chaplains and others who support patients spiritually may not be wandering around with scalpels and syringes, yet they also contribute to the healing process by helping people feel better and feeling better helps people get better, or die better.’

Some of the most moving stories about chaplains at work come not from Christians, but people who’d regard themselves as non-religious. For instance the British Medical Journal recently carried an article by Mark Newitt, a chaplain in Sheffield, reflecting on his visits to an atheist patient who was to die of leukaemia. Adrian Sudbury was a journalist who kept a blog during his last months.

His last email to the chaplain read, ‘It’s difficult to quantify exactly how I was helped but I will just try and briefly explain. For an hour or so we could talk about football, running, the state of the Church, world politics, faith, local and national news, emotional issues and hope. There is no one else who could have provided a service, or range of conversations, to match this—given my unfortunate circumstances.

I loved these chats, and they were always something that left me feeling better and with a renewed determination to keep battling on. It was a service that made one of the most difficult times in my life substantially more bearable.’

It’s this sort of statement which defenders of chaplaincy point to in answer to ideologically-driven attacks on it. Not everyone in hospital will need to see a chaplain. But many who never thought they would find that, at their point of need, there’s no-one else who can give them what they need. Counting the cost and missing the worth.

(Article courtesy of THE BAPTIST TIMES. Click here for so much more!)