Hospital chaplains under threat

A leading Catholic expert on health has claimed that a trend to professionalise hospital chaplaincy could endanger the future of the service.

Jim McManus, who advises the Bishops of England and Wales, complained that the NHS is losing recognition of chaplains’ spiritual role and their connection to faith communities.

Mr McManus told a seminar in Birmingham that registers set up to protect the public – following the case of the Manchester GP Harold Shipman who murdered around 250 of his patients – had contributed to the trend towards professionalising chaplaincy. At a time of major public sector cuts, Mr McManus feared chaplaincy provision was vulnerable if it was considered alongside psychology.

“If all chaplaincy is, is becoming unqualified psychologists without degrees in psychology, then we are wasting our time because NHS trusts will wake up sooner or later and realise that assistant psychologists are cheaper … arguably more safe and effective than chaplains at talking therapies if the big trend of safeguarding and protecting the public is the crucial one,” he said at the Nishkam Centre on 28 May.

Mr McManus, who is director of public health for Hertfordshire County Council, complained of religious illiteracy among health professionals and asked for joint action among faiths on the matter.

“I had to do more education of nurses around religious literacy than they had to do with me around my chemotherapy,” he said.