Spiritual and pastoral care

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Contact the Spiritual and Pastoral Care team

Email - westherts.spiritualcare@nhs.net
Phone - 01923 217994 or 07776 598704 (Monday to Friday, 9am-4pm)

Spiritual and pastoral care is for everybody regardless of one’s faith or belief, including those with no faith.

Our team of pastoral and spiritual healthcare specialists and caregivers bring together a range of multi-faith and humanist approaches, ensuring that patients and their families receive support tailored to their individual needs.

We also have strong connections with a variety of faith and humanist leaders in the local community, who can be reached through the Spiritual and Pastoral Care team.

What spiritual practitioners and chaplains do

Our concern is for the emotional, spiritual and religious needs of patients. While it may appear that our work is mainly religious, in practice it is often a person's spiritual and emotional needs that are paramount in times of emotional stress, physical and mental illness, loss and bereavement.

A short overview of our services:

Person-centred compassionate care

End of life care, last rites and bereavement support
Maintain confidentiality and always seek consent
Communicate effectively verbally and in writing.
Actively listen to patients’ fears, hopes and dreams with empathy
Respect privacy and dignity
Make referrals and protect patients from unwanted visits

Build therapeutic rapport with patients and staff
Sacrament of the Sick
Follow up visits

Patient care

A significant part of our work involves listening to patients, giving them the space to express themselves openly. Our role is to "be with" the patient and offer support, without judgment or attempts to influence their beliefs.

We deeply respect each person's unique experience and primarily provide one-on-one care, always ensuring confidentiality and trust.

One of our tasks is to enable a person to work through some of the issues which they face as a result of being in hospital. This is particularly true for long-term patients.

We’re well placed to be able to provide sensitive support for patients approaching death. This support is also extended to their relatives. The focus is upon a person's spiritual and emotional needs, of which specific religious requirements are an expression.

When someone dies suddenly, people respond in many different ways. Chaplains are available in the Emergency department and Acute Assessment Unit to provide support for relatives on such occasions. When a patient dies suddenly on a ward, a pastoral carer can be available to spend time with the relatives, while ward staff attend to the other needs which such a death causes.

We are also able to assist in the unravelling of difficult ethical issues which can arise in some situations.

Watford, Hemel and St Albans hospitals each have a chapel or multi-faith room available to staff, patients and relatives of all faiths and those of no specific faith at all.

They are open 24 hours a day, seven days a week and offer a quiet place for private and corporate prayer, or for personal reflection and sanctuary.

Watford – There is a multi-faith prayer room, and a multi-faith and belief space (Mendel room) located on the ground floor of the Admin Block.

Hemel Hempstead – A multi-faith space is located in Jubilee wing, room 01.44.

St Albans – There are two quiet rooms available on level 3 of Moynihan wing. Room number 3.78.

For information about daily and weekly events offered by the Spiritual and pastoral care team, please email: westherts.spiritualcare@nhs.net

Each year, West Hertfordshire Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust holds a Service of Remembrance for the families, friends, and carers of those who have passed away. The service is non-denominational.

If you are interested in attending the service and would like further information, please email westherts.patientexperience@nhs.net or call 01923 217712 (Monday to Friday, 8am–4pm, excluding bank holidays).

We run a Chaplaincy training programme and offer placements for anyone thinking of working or volunteering in hospital chaplaincy setting.

Our Pastoral care training candidates learn by serving as volunteer hospital chaplains at Watford, Hemel and St Albans hospitals then sharing and reflecting upon their experiences with their mentor and fellow volunteers and our team of qualified chaplains.

Working beside our qualified clinical chaplains, our trainees help to provide supervised pastoral care to patients and their loved ones as well as to hospital staff members.

Each chaplain-in-training is assigned to areas that provide opportunities to experience a variety of care settings with their unique challenges. The trainees provide supervised pastoral support and have an opportunity to become skilled in facing crisis and meeting unanticipated immediate needs.

The principal learning on the training programme is at the patients’ bedside. However, our volunteer chaplains-in-training also meet regularly with a clinical supervisor to share case conferences, for seminars and to share pastoral reflections at group seminars. There is also a regularly scheduled hour-long, one-on-one session with the clinical supervisor that is devoted to the trainee’s own unique interests and particular situation.

For more information about the training programme and placement options email westherts.spiritualcare@nhs.net.