|
HOSPITAL/HEALTH
CARE CHAPLAINCY
|
||||
 |
||||
|
Information
Sheet
Worship Space Facilities for Worship, Prayer and Reflection 1. Guidance from the Department of Health The NHS Plan and Your Guide to the NHS set out the national standards of respect for privacy and dignity and the respect of religious and cultural beliefs. The Human Rights Act set out the right of the individual to respect of religious observance. These commitments require Chaplaincy services to be provided to meet the spiritual needs of all patients and staff within each individual NHS Trust. Guidance from the Department of Health NHS Chaplaincy: Meeting the Religious and Spiritual Needs of Patients and Staff states that accessible and suitable space for prayer and for religious services should be provided for patients and staff. Different religions have specific requirements, and more than one space may be required with flexibility of furnishing and use of religious symbolism to allow for the multiple use by different faith traditions as required. Members of the Chaplaincy Team will be able to advise on appropriate faith community requirements. Space for prayer and religious services has well established value as a place of calm in time of anxiety and as a sanctuary from other pressures. An appropriate location and 24 hour access is vital. New provision of worship space will normally include adjacent siting of the Chaplaincy-Spiritual Care office and interview accommodation. The very minimum should be some "sanctuary space" for prayer and reflection. 2. Shared Facilities for Religious Use The Inter-Faith Consultative Group of the General Synod has produced very useful guidelines "Room for Religion: Shared Facilities for Religious Use", and a copy is available from HCC on request. Email: HCC Information.
3. Survey of Facilities
Trusts will want to survey the denominational ratios within the hospital setting and consult adequately over possible requirements. In a hospital where multi-faith proportions are not particularly high, it might be worth considering having a distinct Christian chapel. Another room could be set aside for the use of other faiths - with appropriate washing facilities etc. Whilst the practice of Christian church attendance has declined, the Christian church, and particularly the Church of England remains, in the words of Robert Runcie "the focus of vague religious expectation on behalf of the great majority of the English people". It is a Christian chapel, with the usual signs, symbols and the presence of the Blessed Sacrament, that will speak to this great majority in their times of crisis and need. It is that sort of consideration that might inform the way in which a hospital with a small proportion from non-Christian Faiths may wish to develop its thinking on the issue of worship places.
4. Multi-Faith Prayer Rooms
In hospitals with high proportions of non-Christians, the provision of suitable facilities will need to be addressed. A number of Multifaith prayer rooms have recently been commissioned, which tend to reflect the religious diversity of the hospital's patients and staff. Plans/Examples of rooms commissioned in some Trusts are available from HCC on request. Email: HCC Information
5. The Hospital Chapel
Guidelines concerning the provision and planning of a Hospital Chapel were issued in "A Handbook on Hospital Chaplaincy" published in 1987, and are reproduced in an Extract available from HCC on request. Email:HCC Information
6. Additional Information
Further information may be obtained from Chaplaincies at NHS Trusts who have already commissioned or are developing Multi-Faith Chaplaincy Centres or Worship Spaces:
Further links can also be found on our pages
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
This page was updated on 14 August 2008 |