The first non-religious pastoral carer in the NHS on why patients need someone to just be there – to hear their stories or bear witness to their pain, whatever their beliefs

The stress of coming into hospital can take its toll on patients and relatives alike and Jane Flint’s role as a member of the chaplaincy at University Hospitals of Leicester NHS trust is to offer emotional and spiritual support to patients, visitors and staff. The difference between her and the other 12 chaplains is that she is an atheist. Duties are the same as for the other chaplains bar offering prayers, rituals or a religious perspective. “It was wonderful to have you with me. Just knowing that there was someone available who had similar beliefs to mine and that you were coming to see me or I could ask for a visit made such a difference to the rest of my time in hospital,” wrote a former NHS patient.

Like them, Flint will see non-religious and religious people alike who request her services. The role, says Flint, is about “just being there”, whether to hear people’s life stories, to provide a sounding board, or to bear witness to somebody’s pain. It can be about conducting a service for a miscarried child, or for a person who was all alone in life; it can be to provide company, or to give someone time.

“A lot of people – not just the older people – will say ‘nobody has time to just give me time. The nurses are so busy I don’t like to bother them – they don’t have that kind of time any more.’ So going and giving somebody one-to-one time says they’re valued and when you’re feeling wobbly in hospital and who knows what you’re contemplating, that can be really important.”

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Chaplains have always been part of hospital life. Traditionally a role held by people of a Christian faith, there has been greater religious diversity in recent years following a landmark consultation in 1997. Given the religious association with the term chaplain, Flint is called a “non-religious pastoral carer” to avoid confusion.

Flint and colleagues, who include Christian, Hindu, Muslim, and Sikh chaplains, take referrals from the three acute hospitals at the trust and from Leicestershire Partnership NHS trust. Many of the referrals are from palliative care teams. Part of Flint’s time is getting the message out that there is an atheist in the mix. “The thing is getting it known. People can’t ask for it if they don’t know it exists.”

In 2015, NHS England guidance on chaplaincy defined it as a service and profession “focused on ensuring that all people, be they religious or not, have the opportunity to access pastoral, spiritual or religious support when they need it”. It noted a “growing body of evidence” that appropriate spiritual care has “an immediate and enduring benefit” for people using chaplaincy when facing difficult situations such as infant deaths, a terminal diagnosis or psychosis. The guidance says chaplain managers “must consider how best to determine and deliver spiritual care to those whose beliefs are not religious in nature.”

A recent poll by Humanists UK – formerly the British Humanist Association – found that more than two-thirds (69%) of people think non-religious pastoral carers should be provided alongside religious chaplains in places like hospitals, prisons, and universities. Not surprising given that the majority of Britons (53%) now describe themselves as having no religion at all, according to the latest British Social Attitudes Survey.

To date, there are just two paid humanist chaplains in the NHS: Flint, the first in the country to hold such a post, and Paul Noble, who started as humanist assistant chaplain at University Hospital Southampton NHS foundation trust last month. Flint has worked part time in Leicester for almost two years funded by Leicester Hospitals Charity, but from January she will be on the NHS payroll alongside 839 other chaplains working in the NHS in England – almost a quarter fewer than in 2010.

Flint’s post was the brainchild of the Christian head of chaplaincy and bereavement services at the trust, and provoked some initial resistance from colleagues who believed religion is integral to the job or thought the new post unnecessary because they offer support to non-religious people too.

But Flint points out this may not be what the patient wants. “It’s not about the chaplain; it’s about patient choice.”

She draws on her own experiences as an atheist and single parent of two young children who were terrified after she was admitted to hospital for “significant surgery”.

The admission form asked her to state her religion. She asked why. “The nurse said, ‘in case you’re stressed and want to talk to anybody. If we know your faith we can send a chaplain’. So I said, ‘who do I get to talk to then? I don’t want a religious chaplain.’ And she said, ‘oh sorry, no one’.”

Flint adds: “Had there been somebody with our family beliefs that I could have said, ‘I’m going to be out of it for a day, my kids are going to be here waiting in the hospital, could you just come and say hi’ – it would have meant so much.”

Now she is able to do just that for others, offering support that is free of religious concepts such as references to God, to an afterlife or to good and evil. Flint says she has never had somebody say that they’re afraid of dying. “Their concerns are always about the people that they are leaving. That’s a very common thing to want to talk through – not necessarily asking for my advice.They just want to say it out loud.”

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Born in Canada and raised in the US, Flint, 65, used to visit hospital wards as a child with her father, a minister in the American Presbyterian church who served as a chaplain in the Canadian army in the second world war. She never did believe in God. She came to England in her youth, raised two children and trained as a gestalt psychotherapist. She still has a part-time practice.

“Somebody said to me the other day if he were alive now, knowing you’re the atheist in the chaplaincy, what would he think? I said he would absolutely be proud of me. There’s no question that our values are the same and imparting those values for him wasn’t dependent or conditional on me believing in God.” Trained as a funeral celebrant with Humanists UK, Flint had also completed the charity’s accredited non-religious volunteer course designed for people wishing to provide pastoral support in hospitals, prisons and the armed forces before she saw the advert for the chaplaincy role. Humanists UK say 25% of NHS trusts in England and Wales now have at least one humanist volunteer.Flint believes the role makes a difference. “Being there both for the person dying and the family can help that person to have a good death in an emotional and psychological sense. If it eases that, then the ripples for the family that are left, that everybody talked about everything they needed to, makes a huge difference for that family going forward – not just the person who died.” A note she has kept from a colleague illustrates her point. “I’ve just had a phone call from a woman whose brother had been in a hospital in Leicester but died in the last couple of days,” says the memo. “She said that he had mentioned to her that you had been speaking with him in recent weeks and he found your visits helpful, enjoyable and comforting. She therefore wanted to know whether or not you would be available to take his funeral?”

Curriculum vitae

Age: 65.

Family: Single, two grown–up children, three grandchildren.

Lives: Melton Mowbray, Leicestershire.

Education: Rich East High School, Chicago, Illinois; University of Wisconsin to study dance, dropped out to travel; University of Nottingham MA, Counselling Studies; Temenos Counselling and Training Centre, Sheffield, postgraduate certificate in counselling supervision; College of Arts and Technology, Rotherham, adult education teacher’s certificate; Middlesex University, MSc, gestalt psychotherapy.

Career: 2016-present: Non-religious pastoral carer, University Hospitals Leicester Chaplaincy; 2011-present: psychotherapist, Nottingham Children’s Development Centre, Ataxia Telangiectasia Clinic; 2007-2013: management consultant, Right Corecare Ltd; 2004-2008: primary care counsellor, North Nottinghamshire Primary care trust, Psychological Services; 2002 to present: Private Practice, Jane Flint Counselling and Psychotherapy; 2001-2005: freelance trainer, Sheffield Women Against Violence Trainers Network; 2004-2009: external consultant, Trent multi-professional deanery, Nottingham; 1999-2004: training and volunteer coordinator, Sheffield Domestic Abuse Forum; 1995-1999: Disability support scheme coordinator, Barnardos, Nottingham; 1978-1993: Hospitality, Nottinghamshire.

Public life: Member of non-religious pastoral support network management board, Humanist Care, London; member of advisory board for the MA in existential and humanist pastoral care, Existential Academy, London.

Interests: Canine agility, walking, history and reading.