There has been a new round of letters in the local press about the payment of Hospital Chaplains salaries by the NHS. Those published on the 5th and 12th of November are shown below together with an as yet unpublished reply on behalf of Berkshire Humanists.

Original posting Chronicle, Thursday, November 5, 2009

IS idea an answer to cutback prayers?

IT was recently revealed that chaplains operating in the National Health Service are funded by the NHS and not the respective churches that they represent.

The NHS pays £32m annually in salaries for this service. Training costs, chapels and other overheads brings this figure up to about £40m. This sum would pay for 1,500 nurses or 2,300 cleaners. The statistics further showed that The Royal Berkshire NHS contribute annually £130,000 in salaries alone at this single hospital. In the current economic situation we must accept cutbacks in many areas including the NHS.

It would seem reasonable that consideration should be given to asking the churches to pay for their own chaplains to visit and provide spiritual needs to patients as and when required. Clearly there is a limited need for chaplains and the NHS has a duty to make this facility freely available, but not available free.

Surely the churches should provide and pay for their own chaplains. I am sure that most people believe this to be the case anyway.

I have contacted the Chief Executive of The Royal Berkshire NHS Foundation Trust on this matter and enquired whether they will consider asking the respective churches to pay for their own chaplains.

The reply that I received was no.

Apparently the Royal Berks is happy to retain its present policy of subsidising the churches with NHS funding at the expense of providing extra nurses or medical care.

When cutbacks and priorities are being considered, I find this a most curious reasoning.

Alan Stuart Purley-on-Thames

3 Replies on November 12th

1. STAR LETTER: Wards ran on Christian charity before NHS

Re: ‘Is idea an answer to cut back prayers?’ (Alan Stuart , Letters, November 5)

THE NHS was only set up in 1948 and took over the established hospitals. These institutions had been built up over many centuries by the Christian charity, in perpetuity, of our ancestors. For example, the foundation of the Royal Berkshire Hospital is on land given by Henry Addington and family as a Christian duty (`noblesse oblige’). Sidmouth ward is named after him and Adelaide ward after the Royal Queen of William IV which dates this event to 1830. Our present monarch is still the head of the Established Church of England and defender of that faith, so a Royal foundation still remains entirely Christian. The Christian chaplains provide a vital ministry to both patients and staff and are an essential constituent of the English way when caring for the injured and the seriously ill and sick people.

Mary Field

2. Have faith in hospital chaplains

WHEN an anxious patient is lying in hospital, with cancer, facing a difficult operation not knowing what the future may hold, then they need all the help they can get from whatever quarter.

Therefore in my view, to argue about who should pay the small amount for hospital chaplains is being callous and small-minded.

So I take issue with Alan Stuart’s letter (Chronicle, November 5) objecting to the cost of supporting chaplains at the Royal Berkshire Hospital – £130,000 per annum — which by the way is less than one twentieth of 1% of this hospital’s annual budget.

As a matter of fact I shared John’s view until quite recently when I became an emergency patient at this very same hospital and had the opportunity of watching the chaplains at work in my ward and talking to fellow patients.

That experience changed my mind and I now think that, in the case of apprehensive and even frightened patients, chaplains can make a valuable contribution towards the healing process.

I don’t pretend to know how this healing process works or to understand the complicated relationship between mind and body when a patient is fighting against sickness.

As an atheist I doubt that it is divine

intervention, but more likely something called the Placebo Effect that has been proven many times over to be a most powerful and effective medicine that actually works in many circumstances – although it is still hardly understood.

But what about non-religious patients? Surely all patients, agnostics and atheists as well as theists, need chaplains of some sort with whom to talk?

If only our excellent consultants and doctors at the RBH had more time to communicate with patients, explaining things and reassuring them about their fears; then I am certain that their success rates would improve even further. But sadly they appear to be rushed off their feet sparing only a few minutes for each patient.

So I do not resent the money spent on chaplains in the least; I would just like similar treatment for all patients.

David Bazley

Hamilton Road, Reading

3.

I MUST respectfully disagree with my good friend Alan Stuart’s suggestion that hospital chaplains should be paid for by the churches (and presumably the synagogues, mosques and temples for other faiths).

There is abundant evidence that people who are ill need more than physical treatment.

Healing of the body is quicker and more complete when the patient is supported by people who have the experience and skills to listen and talk sympathetically about emotional and spiritual needs.

Those who are dying often need to share thoughts about what happens after death, whether or not they believe in a personal God or an afterlife.

Sadly, medical and nursing staff do not have the time, and may not always have the skills, to offer this kind of care.

That’s what chaplains are for, not just for patients who share their faith, but for everyone.

I believe that the cuts Alan suggests would be a false economy, leading to slower recovery and more work for the medical staff and I am relieved that the Royal Berkshire NHS Foundation Trust does not plan to make them.

If Alan finds himself in hospital and I hear about it, I hope I will be able to visit him – not to convert him to my faith (although I pray that the Holy Spirit will one day convert him), but just to show love and support.

Those who have no family or friends to do that have to rely on hospital chaplains, or on the non-existent spare time of doctors and nurses.

Robert Dimmick

Lowfield Road Caversham

Letter to Chronicle sent 16/11/09

 

REPLY by Alan Stuart PUBLISHED  ON 18/11/09

 Hospital prayers letters answered 

I WAS interested to read the replies to my  comments on hospital chaplains and am happy that your columns have balanced the views on the subject (ChronicleNovember 5 and 12).

I would like to point out that I am not opposed to prayers being uttered in hospitals. I am deeply concerned that your . readers and my friends should think that I would hold such dictatorial views.

I made the point strongly that the NHS  has a duty to make this facility (chaplain service) freely available.  I am very much in favour of the NHS making it possible for patients to have the spiritual comfort  of prayer when they are in need. It matters . not to me, that this comfort may well be a  placebo effect.

I reiterate the need for prayers being said in hospitals when a patient requests it, provided that there is no proselytising and that this service is provided by the churches and not (paid for by) the NHS.

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Taking this as part of a wider problem we see that the churches are very keen to take over many public services (including prisons) even where they do not have a history and there are dangers (as with the hospital) of not everyone’s needs being covered in a balanced and fair manner. What makes it more dangerous is that the churches are expecting to get the government to fund these schemes and the government is a little too keen to offload them without putting in place the correct oversight of inclusive coverage. Even the Archbishop of Canterbury has warned aid agencies working abroad about the dangers (which are just as real in this country).

“[There are] perfectly real” dangers of working with faith-based activists and groups in developing countries. Dr Rowan Williams encouraged secular agencies and NGOs to maintain a “steady vigilance about proselytism, manipulative use of favours, exclusive focus on people of the same faith and other practices that distort the goals of liberation for a whole community”.

The Guardian Nov 12^th

The problem of religions and atheists competing for resources will be with us for a long time until all religions decide to join with other religions or beliefs in full interfaith discussions and are prepared to devote as much thought to other beliefs as their own.[This week is National Interfaith week] The British Humanist Association endorses this kind of approach. The government needs to show much more determination in standing up to the churches and seeing that everyone gets what they need in these areas.