Job description
Frimley Health NHS Foundation Trust has three main sites: Frimley Park Hospital in Frimley, Surrey; Wexham Park Hospital in Slough, Berkshire; and Heatherwood Hospital in Ascot, Berkshire. The Trust also provides services from a number of satellite sites including Farnham Hospital and Heathlands Centre in Bracknell and Fleet Community Hospital.
We are looking for an enthusiastic, highly motivated, and experienced individual to be based atWexham Park Hospital in Slough. Experience working in pastoral care is an essential requirement.
They will join the Trust-wide Chaplaincy Department of Frimley Health NHS Foundation Trust. The Chaplaincy Department provides pastoral, spiritual and religious care to patients, their relatives and carers and staff within the Trust. They will work as a generic chaplain and their approach will be person-centred and collaborative. Working well within a team is central to the role. You will work with the Lead Chaplain and the current team of Chaplains and Trust Volunteers.
Your role will involve:
- Working with the current team of Chaplains and Trust Chaplaincy Volunteers in extending the provision of care in challenging situations.
- Providing specialist knowledge and expertise in matters relating to spiritual and religious beliefs, experiences and practices.
- Sharing in daytime weekday duties which are from 8am to 4pm.
- Sharing in the out of hours on-call rota and working as a generic chaplain able to respond to the needs of people of all faiths and beliefs, noting that the majority of calls are for Anglican and Roman Catholic patients;
- You will primarily at Wexham Park Hospital but be expected to work cross-site depending on operational needs.
Frimley Health NHS Foundation Trust (FHFT) has an outstanding reputation and a proud record of achievement. We have an ongoing commitment to improving the health and care services for the 900,000 people we serve across Berkshire, Hampshire, Surrey and south Buckinghamshire.
We continue to invest in our services and facilities, including a £10 million upgrade to the hospital maternity unit as well as £49m major new Emergency Assessment Centre on our Wexham Park site. The opening of a brand new £100m state of the art hospital which replaced the existing hospital facility at Heatherwood and are planning to invest further in diagnostics and inpatient capacity at Frimley Park.
We have also made significant investment in our quality improvement and digital programmes to support our vision and we will ensure that we achieve our aim of providing the highest quality healthcare to our patients. Our new EPR – Epic – went live in June and we are already beginning to reap the benefits of this ambitious investment.
Our three core values, and the behaviours that support them, guide everything we do and set out what we expect of our staff in the way they treat patients, visitors, service users and each other.
If you have a passion for clinical excellence, patient care and your own career development, you’ll feel at home at Frimley Health.
KEY TASKS & Responsibilities: • Contribute to the effective working of the Spiritual and Pastoral Care team:
- Respond to referral by assessing the pastoral, spiritual and religious needs. Where the assessed needs require a religious response that is different from the Chaplain's, the Chaplain will refer to an appropriate staff Chaplain or a representative from the individual’s faith community or belief group.
- • Ensure good communication and collaboration with all members of the Chaplaincy Department.
- Follow established procedures and policies.
- To share in the provision of 24-hour on-call cover; making decisions using own initiative about spiritual needs in crisis situations; responding to emergency calls in week and weekend night-times while meeting the required response time. This dimension includes responsibility for putting the opening phases of the FHFT Major Incident Plan into action for Spiritual and Pastoral Care when required.
- Share in the daytime duty rota (8am to 4pm Monday to Friday)
- Share in the daytime Sunday duty rota (8am to 1pm) with the frequency of this duty being agreed with the Lead Chaplain
- Receive and respond to referrals from members of the healthcare team.
- • To visit wards and departments on a regular basis during daytime hours.
- Share in the maintenance of the spaces for prayer and reflection and the provision of resources for worship and spiritual expression.
- Assist in the planning of the work of Chaplaincy Volunteers.
- Participate in particular projects and operational groups as directed by the Lead Chaplain.
- Prepare and disseminate briefing material, reports and liturgical material as directed by the Lead Chaplain.
- Assist with Chaplaincy service developments, including Major Incident planning and implementation.
- Be an affirming and supportive presence within the Trust.
- Contribute to audit and research within Chaplaincy practice.
- Provide pastoral and spiritual care: • Assess spiritual health and wellbeing needs, develop spiritual care plans, and keep written and electronic records.
- Manage referrals and determine a timely response.
- Maintain confidentiality and obtain informed consent.
- Provide or facilitate spiritual and pastoral care sensitive to the cultural, faith and belief realities of the diversity of service users, including identifying language needs and accessing interpreting services.
- Protect individuals from all unwanted visits, including visits from faith community or belief group representatives, and communicate this to third parties as appropriate.
- Maintain effective and consistent links with designated clinical areas.
- Work collaboratively alongside other professionals of all grades.
- Articulate need on behalf of an individual when required.
- Provide or facilitate religious care: • Deliver ritual consistent with one’s own faith or belief tradition.
- Devise, co-ordinate and lead ritual to meet particular needs (e.g., memorial services for staff; bespoke ceremonies for those who have experienced an early pregnancy loss.)• Perform ritual interventions connected with crisis according to the needs of users and consistent with the permissions and practice of one’s own faith or belief community (e.g., the baptism of seriously ill babies; the sacrament of the sick.)
- Conduct Trust funerals.
- Organise rites and sacraments that cannot be undertaken by the post holder to be administered by a suitable colleague or community faith/belief leader.
- Make referrals to appropriate faith/belief leaders and community ministers of religion at the patient’s request and with their consent.
- Establish effective links with faith/belief leaders in the community.
- Record all assessments and interventions in Trust information systems.
- Assist in maintaining an accessible and high-quality provision of resources for worship and spiritual expression appropriate to the diversity of users of all faiths and none.
- Provide support for staff: • Model working relationships that respect the integrity of others.
- Schedule time for staff support.
- Assess and respond to staff pastoral and spiritual needs (individual or collective.)
- Respect confidence in responding to requests for personal support from members of staff and volunteers.
- Maintain awareness of issues, changes and conditions that may affect staff wellbeing.
- Collaborate with other relevant departments in promoting staff wellbeing.
- Identify other sources of staff support and, with consent, facilitate referral.
- Providing training and education: • Identify the learning needs of self and others.
- Contribute to the planning and delivery of learning opportunities.
- Contribute to the selection, training and supervision of Trust Chaplaincy Volunteers.
- Train and oversee trainee chaplains and pastoral care placement students.
- Contribute to Trust and/or Departmental Induction Programme for new staff.
- Present education and training sessions to a variety of internal and external groups.
- Personal and Professional Development: • Maintain a personal discipline within the integrity of the post holder’s own faith or belief tradition (e.g., meditation; daily prayer.)
- Practice in accordance with the principles of the United Kingdom Board for Healthcare Chaplaincy, the College of Health Care Chaplains and the Network for Pastoral, Spiritual and Religious Care in Health.
- Be accountable to you licensing belief, faith, religion, or community authority.
- Take responsibility, with Trust support, for continuing personal and professional development, including appropriate arrangements for pastoral supervision.
- Participate in an annual appraisal.
- Contribute to the effective working of the Trust: • Follow Trust policies and procedures.
- Embody Trust values.
- Undertake mandatory training.
- Participate in relevant Trust-wide activities.
- Represent Chaplaincy in healthcare teams (e.g., MDTs) in the Trust.
- Represent Chaplaincy at relevant functions and events.
- Create and lead corporate acts which have spiritual significance (e.g., Acts of Remembrance.)