Oral - Standards for Spiritual Care Services in the NHS in Wales

I wish to make a statement about the new standards for spiritual care services in the national health service in Wales which I am launching today. The standards have been developed following a considerable amount of consultation and engagement with the national health service, faith leaders and other stakeholders, and I am pleased that they are finally ready to be issued.

It is important to recognise the value of the work done by healthcare chaplains and their colleagues from within the various faiths in providing a spiritual care service to patients, their families, carers and staff. Throughout the NHS, chaplains and spiritual care givers not only offer religious ministry to members of faith communities, but are also called upon to give wider spiritual care to those who have no association whatsoever with religious groups.

Many people need support when they are ill that goes beyond just caring for their physical or medical needs. Supporting people in this way complements the work of healthcare professionals and leads to a better experience for patients overall.

I am pleased to say that the majority of responses from the consultation were largely supportive of the move to produce a set of standards in which expectations for this service are clearly set out.

I have published a report on the main themes that came out of the consultation, which included comments about the training of staff, patient confidentiality, accommodation for worship, mental health, providing the necessary human resource, the secularisation of spiritual care, the needs of children and young people, and nurses’ role in providing spiritual care.

After considering all the comments and in recognition of this valuable service, which forms an important element of the services the NHS in Wales provides to help prevent and treat illness, I am introducing these standards to facilitate the audit of spiritual care services, to ensure equality across services and to develop an integrated approach to the delivery of religious and spiritual care. The standards will also inform and provide an evidence base of good practice for the future development of spiritual care in the NHS. The standards apply to spiritual care services funded by NHS local health boards and trusts.

The standards also include guidance on capabilities and competences for healthcare chaplains and spiritual care givers in Wales that will form the framework to inform and develop education and training, the planning of work-based learning and the personal development of healthcare chaplains and spiritual care givers. Spiritual care requires certain competences, but it is particularly attuned to capability. There is a degree of perception, behaviour and attitude in spiritual care that is difficult to describe in terms of a task. This is best expressed by a capability framework within which there are groups of competences.

The implementation of the standards is based on undertaking a review of the current spiritual care provision and agreeing a plan for the future. I expect those plans to be in place locally by September 2010. Local health boards and trusts will need to identify the human and financial resources devoted to the spiritual care services as part of their baseline review.

The spiritual care standards have been linked to 'Doing Well, Doing Better: Standards for Health Services in Wales’, which focuses on improving health and wellbeing as well as providing high-quality and safe healthcare, and will be used by Healthcare Inspectorate Wales to undertake testing and validation of the self assessments against the standards for the health service as part of its public assurance role.

I have discussed the standards with senior members of the faith communities and they are supportive. However, I have said that I will review the standards after 12 months’ operation to see how well they are working. During that period, I will expect the NHS to look for ways to work efficiently to embed these spiritual care standards into its services for its patients and thus provide a more holistic package of care to the individual. I am grateful to all of those who responded to the consultation and look forward to an exciting addition to the package of care for patients in the NHS in Wales.