The first item of business is time for reflection. Our leader today is the Rev James Allardyce, retired hospital chaplain, Wishaw general hospital.
I worked as a hospital chaplain for 20 years, 18 of them part time and the last two full time. Retirement has given me an opportunity to look back and reflect on some of the changes that have taken place over those 20 years.
When I started, chaplaincy was almost exclusively the domain of the church. Appointments were made by the local presbytery or diocese and were invariably ministers or priests with perhaps a deacon or nun to assist them. Very early in my career, I learned to read the signs that a patient did not want to speak to a minister. You know the kind of thing: the newspaper lifted up in front of the face, the feigned sleep—things like that. I suppose that I could not blame those patients. I was, after all, wearing my badge of office, the dog collar. For my last two years all that changed. I stopped wearing my collar.
Chaplaincy is now, of course, a part of the national health service in Scotland and an associated healthcare profession, and I have no doubt that the changes that have been made to chaplaincy—or, to give it its proper name, spiritual care—have made a difference to patients and staff alike. If you have someone who is a professional listener on hand to spend time with, you can make the long day in hospital a bit more bearable. Staff, too, can confide in their chaplain knowing that what they say is kept in confidence. Religious needs can also be taken care of, either by the chaplain or by the person’s own religious representative.
Where do we go now? The next direction is towards person-centred care. We must recognise that each patient is an individual and that one size of spiritual care does not fit all. Similarly, we must continue to acknowledge that each individual is part of our society, so spiritual care must reflect both individualism and collectivity.
Spiritual care could prove to be invaluable as other healthcare professions become more and more involved with the practicalities of easing the medical condition of the patient. An individual who can spend time listening to a patient’s concerns, sympathise with the patient and communicate that patient’s concerns to the medical staff will surely make a difference to the patient’s wellbeing.