We do this by providing pastoral, spiritual and religious care to those we come alongside, not telling them what to do but listening, not judging but rather, being understanding. We are here for all.
About us
The Trust’s Spiritual and Pastoral Care Team is made up of chaplains from different faith and belief groups, honorary chaplains and volunteers. We are available to support patients, along with their families and carers, during their time in hospital. We also offer staff support on request.
As Chaplains, our support and care network stretches throughout the entire hospital yet at the same time; each Chaplain has responsibility for seeing patients on particular wards, to ask how we might best support them during their time in hospital. As a result, any requests that are of a specific nature to a particular faith/belief are then triaged to the appropriate Chaplain. Should this prove difficult in getting the appropriate religious care from within the team, our well established links within the local faith/belief organisations is activated. This is to ensure that, every individual we care for, has access to their own faith/belief organisation/leader. With this in mind, we also call upon the Roman Catholic clergy from the local area to support patient’s sacramental needs on request.
We cover most of Trust sites and these include the Lister, Mount Vernon and New QEII. Hertford County is under review at the moment.
How can I get referred?
As a service, we provide 24/7 care and support, 365 days a year. Outside normal working hours, all requests for a Chaplain should go via the Trust Switchboard. Our referrals come from a variety of sources. These can take the form of: patients making direct contact with a member of the team or, requesting that, ward staff contact us. It also involves, staff members being made aware of our service (as a result of their induction) thereby, identifying patients that are emotionally distressed or have had no visitors over a long period of time being put in touch with our service. Working collaboratively with different departments across the Trust does lean itself to our team being called upon in difficult situations.
