Hospital chaplains who cost £29m a year have no clinical benefit, says controversial study



Church leaders said the study was guilty of a 'laughable misuse of statistical information'

The NHS spends £29million on hospital chaplains which provide 'no clinical benefit', critics claimed today.



Data obtained by the National Secular Society (NSS) from 227 trusts in England found savings of £18.5million a year could be made if all trusts brought their spending into line with those who spent the least.



The society argues this cash could be better spent on 1,000 nursing assistants or a new community hospital every year.

The Rev Dr Michael Brown said the role of hospital chaplains in a regime of holistic care was not in doubt among serious practitioners

Using the Freedom of Information Act, analysts compared the amount spent on chaplains in 2009/10 with how well trusts performed on some quality indicators, including death rates.



They reported that those with the lowest spend on chaplaincy services were some of the best-performing hospitals.



The NSS concluded the NHS 'wastes millions every year' on services that have no clinical benefit.



NSS executive director Keith Porteous Wood said: 'Taxpayers will be shocked to learn how much healthcare money is diverted into paying for chaplaincy services.



'The cash-strapped NHS should spend its money on frontline services.



'The National Secular Society is not seeking to oust chaplains from hospitals, but their cost should not be borne by public funds, especially when clinical services for patients are being cut.



'We have proposed that chaplaincy services should be paid for through charitable trusts, supported by churches and their parishioners.



'If churches really support 'the big society', then they will stop siphoning off NHS cash to fund chaplains' salaries.'

The Rev Dr Malcolm Brown, director of mission and public affairs for the Archbishops' Council of the Church of England, said the NSS was 'guilty of a laughable misuse of statistical information'.

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He added: 'It is widely accepted within the medical profession that healthcare involves looking after the whole person, not just the body.



'It is equally obvious that national quality ratings can only be used to measure the discrete criteria which they have been designed to measure.



'The role of hospital chaplains in a regime of holistic care is not in doubt among serious practitioners.



'Chaplains are greatly appreciated by patients and staff alike and it is unfortunate that the NSS continues to try to pressurise experienced healthcare professionals, including those with responsibility for budgets, to allocate resources according to the NSS's minority ideology rather than affirming the NHS's long tradition of caring for the whole person.'



Father Peter Scott, advisor for healthcare chaplaincy to the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Westminster, Vincent Nichols, said that, according to the NSS calculations, 0.000029% of the NHS 2009/10 budget was spent on employing 500 whole time and 800 part-time chaplains 'to meet the spiritual and religious needs of 1.7 million NHS staff and to serve a patient turnover of one million patients every 36 hours'.



He said the Department of Health website makes clear it is 'impossible to say exactly how much the nation's health improves for each pound spent by the NHS'.



He added: 'The 'National Quality Ratings' that the National Secular Society quotes are not designed or narrow enough to measure whether the spiritual needs of a patient have been met.



'The National Quality Ratings are about general performance issues regarding each healthcare trust.



'Therefore the conclusions drawn by the NSS are irrelevant.'

