Freedom of Information Request – Ref: FOI 403-2025
Thank you for your recent Freedom of Information request. Please find our response below.
You asked:
As part of a piece of work I am undertaking to review the spiritual, religious, and / or chaplaincy services offered by NHS England, I am contacting you to ask for the following information to please be provided.
1. How many whole-time equivalents are employed in the spiritual, religious, and / or chaplaincy service(s) and what are their bandings? Please differentiate between staff on substantive and temporary contracts, as well as staff working in the service on bank or agency contracts.
2. What are the typical core hours of the spiritual, religious, and / or chaplaincy service(s) on offer? How are these service(s) provided over the week (i.e. weekdays only, seven days a week, etc)?
3. What type of support (such as regular activities, events, or gatherings) is offered by the spiritual, religious, and / or chaplaincy service(s)? Please differentiate this between support offered to patients, support offered to family / friends, and support offered to staff members.
4. What on-call or out-of-hours provisions are made by the spiritual, religious, and / or chaplaincy service(s) at your Trust? Please differentiate between provisions offered by staff members employed by the Trust, and provisions offered by external contractors / arrangements.
5. What support is offered to the spiritual, religious, and / or chaplaincy services(s) by external organisations? For instance, what contracts are held by the Trust for this / these service(s) and who are these contracts with?
6. On average, how many service users are supported by the spiritual, religious, and / or chaplaincy service(s) in a week? Please take an average of service users supported between January and December 2024.
7. What is the overall satisfaction for the spiritual, religious, and / or chaplaincy service(s) offered by your Trust? Please provide the overall satisfaction for the period January 2024 to December 2024.
8. What supervision, if any, is provided to staff working in the spiritual, religious, and / or chaplaincy service(s)? Please identify whether this is provided by your Trust or by an external provider, and the average annual cost for this provision.
Our response:
Please see the responses to questions 1 to 8 on the link below:
You asked:
9. Please provide a contact name and contact email address if there should be any additional queries relating to this Freedom of Information request.
Our response:
Please see below
Next steps:
Should you have any queries in relation to our response, please do not hesitate to contact us. If you are unhappy with the response you have received in relation to your request and wish to ask us to review our response, you should write to:
Louise Moss
Head of Legal Services / Associate Director of Corporate Governance
c/o Gloucestershire Health and Care NHS Foundation Trust
Edward Jenner Court
1010 Pioneer Avenue
Gloucester Business Park
Brockworth, GL3 4AW
E-mail: louise.moss@ghc.nhs.uk
If you are not content with the outcome of any review, you may apply directly to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) for further advice/guidance. Generally, the ICO will not consider your case unless you have exhausted your enquiries with the Trust which should include considering the use of the Trust’s formal complaints procedure. The ICO can be contacted at: The Information Commissioner’s Office, Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire SK9 5AF.