Spiritual Care

The words 'spiritual care at Royal Surrey NHS Foundation Trust' on a blue background

 

Assessing your spiritual need

Do you have a Spirituality, Faith, Religion or Philosophy that is important to you? Let us know whilst being cared for within the Trust.

Spiritual Care assessments are complex and multi-layered, but we achieve simplicity in that each one begins and ends with the individual.

What is Spiritual Care?

We offer Spiritual Care as a non-clinical intervention in the clinical environment, to assist patients as they consider the existential questions which illness can provoke.

Spiritual Care operates in support of the individual patient and their patient journey, and in support of staff as they care for each patient. Spiritual Care also supports bereavement issues, loss and trauma, life-changing illness or injury, mental health and positive recovery pathways, as well as patients and staff looking at End of Life care.

Spiritual Care looks to support all under duress, to journey with clinicians and their patients in the ethical and moral issues facing them, to support the compassionate mission of the Trust and its community vision.

 

Who is Spiritual Care for?

Spiritual Care operates for all, and by all and with all. You can be a staff member or a patient, and be a spiritual care giver or receiver. To enter into the conversation to begin to address the existential questions makes you a stakeholder in Spiritual Care. It is a universal concept for everyone, a universality which involves you.

Spiritual Care or Religious Need?

Some staff and patients will have all their Spiritual Care needs met in a ritual religious intervention of their faith. Spiritual Care works to support religious ritual interventions in the Trust by your known religious representatives. We offer support and assistance to external faith providers entering the clinical environment, and we work to support you by protecting your health and privacy through the teaching and sharing of Trust Information Governance and Infection Control policies.

Please be aware that it is possible to do more harm than good to a sick person thorough an intervention which is not aligned to a patient’s clinical need. If you are coming to the Trust to support a patient with religious ritual needs, please feel free to contact Spiritual Care for specific guidance in normal working hours.

Services of Love following pregnancy loss

Spiritual Care offers a Service of Love to women and their partners and families who have been affected by pregnancy loss from 14+0 weeks, and in Late-Term Miscarriage according to need.

There is an annual Service of Love held during Baby Loss Awareness Week in October. Anyone who has been affected by pregnancy loss is welcome to attend. Please contact Spiritual Care if you would like more information.

 

Prayer space

Spiritual Care prays within and looks after the Prayer Space on Level B at Royal Surrey County Hospital. This is dedicated space made available by the Trust for Spiritual Care needs and is managed by the Lead Chaplain.

This is a chapel which is used by all for private prayer, meditation, contemplation or thought. Half the Prayer Space is available for the use of prayer mats. Here also, Trust Information Governance and Infection Control policies are closely followed. Spiritual Care also holds resources in most of the world’s major faiths for use by individuals to fulfil their Spiritual Needs whilst here at the Trust.  

Staff, Patients, Friends, Family and Loved Ones

Spiritual Care welcomes the opportunity to work for and to work alongside, to learn from and to respond to, and to encourage the spirituality of every staff member, and each clinical pathway offered in the Trust. 

Spiritual Care welcomes the opportunity to put our patients first. Spiritual Care welcomes all friends, families and loved ones who gather in the Trust.