I returned today from taking communion to a man in hospital. The Chaplain had already been to visit; but for very particular reasons I was asked to do the service. The nurses were all very welcoming and helpful to someone not familiar with all the hospital routines and requirements.

Normally I am more than happy to let the Chaplains do their work; if, that is, there is one. Not all hospitals now have full time Chaplains.  I sometimes visit parishioners in hospital, but don’t always know people are admitted, or have the time to go as often as I would like.

In the course of my parish ministry I have valued the work of Chaplains, not only in hospitals, but in prisons, colleges and schools. They are men and women who have particular expertise and understanding of people in specific and occasionally traumatic circumstances.

For example, I have many times been more than grateful for the pastoral support of Chaplains when babies or young people have died in hospital, or in cases of road accident victims. They are on hand to help at the crucial times and build up a close and personal relation to the families concerned.

It was with a sense of challenge therefore that I read of the National Secular Society saying that all funding should be removed from the NHS for Hospital Chaplains. It is estimated that 42 million pounds is spent in England Scotland and Wales for chaplaincy work and pensions generally, out of a total budget of 95 Billion pounds in England and Wales. They say that Church communities should pay. It is a waste of money (much as the disciples argued, according to Matthew, when the woman wasted the costly ointment on the feet of Jesus).

The secularists are to a degree pushing at an open door, especially in the present climate, since the NHS is systematically reducing its commitment to chaplaincy work across all the main religious organisations. It sounds a very reasonable proposition. It challenges religious groups to ask how committed they are to provide spiritual resources for everyone, and not just their own.

We should expect the Secular Society to advocate the removal of funding, since they are opposed to all religious influence in any sphere. It is part of the continuing secularisation of our society.

But more than that, it is another step towards the compartmentalising of community.  We are losing connections with each other, and being encouraged to follow our own interests.  Ironically the Secular Society doesn’t see the inherent contradiction in their argument; viz that they are the one body that can speak for all. They would love religion to become totally a sectarian interest devoid of any public benefit or relevance. Religious communities began hospitals. To enshrine in our Health Service the principle that spiritual care (not just Christian), is part of total health care is, I would argue, a civilising process, and an acknowledgement that spiritual need is part of the body social, not an appendage. It is a small cost to a nation that values the soul as well as the body.

The religious Chaplains do a lot of practical care work, as well as prayer work, for non-churchgoers as well as their own: but more than that, they symbolise the fact that life is a whole complex process, involving body and soul, and that the body politic is not only a collection of sectional interests but a community.

Chris Boulton