Detailed job description and main responsibilities

The postholder will:

Pastoral and spiritual care

·       Provide religious, pastoral and spiritual care to staff, patients and visitors within Calderdale and Huddersfield NHS Foundation Trust.

·       Have A professional chaplaincy identity rooted in one’s own religious /spiritual/pastoral heritage that integrates professional values and behaviours, skills and specialist knowledge.

·       Be a skilled communicator and to be able to establish and maintain relationships, often in challenging and sensitive situations.

·       Be able to negotiate and work within highly complex and sensitive situations and to provide or advise on the spiritual care that is required. 

·       Be able to make specialised independent judgements regarding spiritual care, dependent upon the situation.

·       Have a commitment to one's own professional and spiritual growth and development.

·       Provide pastoral advice and support to staff of all disciplines and grades, both in professional and personal matters, and to participate in initiatives to promote good quality spiritual and religious care.

·       Develop and maintain skills and knowledge necessary to provide person-centred, evidence-based chaplaincy care to both healthcare staff as well as patients and their families

·       Be a spiritual, pastoral and ethical religious resource for the Trust; and to advise and facilitate on religious, pastoral and spiritual support for other faiths in consultation with chaplains of other faiths.

·       Participate in meeting objectives set by the Trust on aspects of healthcare.

·       Ensure an inclusive approach to developing and delivering chaplaincy services

·       If required, to commemorate the lives of staff members who die in service.

·       Liaise with other healthcare staff so that spiritual assessment and care form part of the continuum of care and attend multi-disciplinary meetings and department meetings as and when attendance is considered necessary.

·       Take responsibility for the departmental 'on call' rotas, and, with others provide generic on call cover overnight and at weekends

·       Have responsibility for responding to Major Incidents on behalf of the Chaplaincy Team. 

·       Liaise with and advise local religious leaders about pastoral, spiritual and religious care of patients, visitors and staff and to receive information from such leaders, always remembering rules of confidentiality by which every NHS employee is bound.

·       Participate in disseminating information concerning healthcare to communities and in reducing obstacles, where religious and cultural considerations are involved.

·       Work effectively in highly stressful situations or where there is distress and/or verbal abuse.

Conducting religious services

·       Arrange a timetable for services of public worship regularly in the Trust's hospitals. 

·       Ensure that the Chapel and Prayer Rooms in the Trust's Hospitals are suitably maintained and furnished. 

·       Arrange and conduct Contract Funerals (miscarriages, stillbirths, neonatal deaths and adults) as required.

·       Arrange such memorial services and other corporate or public services as the Trust requires. 

·       Provide or enable appropriate rites and rituals, particularly with regard to death and the dying, the seriously ill and birth rites, as required and as consistent with the post holder’s authorised scope of practice.

Teaching

·       Participate in the training of students/ordinands.

·       Lead in the development and delivery of training in religious care, spiritual care, bereavement, end of life care, etc., through induction, preceptorship and other bespoke training sessions to staff of all grades and disciplines.

·       Recruit, train and prepare chaplaincy volunteers for their role, including that of End-of-Life Companions.

·       Undertake own relevant statutory and mandatory training using the Trust’s e-learning package.

·       Demonstrate a commitment to research-based practice and clinical excellence in chaplaincy.

Leadership responsibilities

·       Have responsibility for the day to day running of the Chaplaincy, and to organize those to deputise in their absence.

·       Promote effective interpersonal relationships with all members of the multi-professional team thereby ensuring a good team spirit, collaborative and person-centred working practices

·       Plan and chair the Team's Monthly Meetings or arrange for a deputy.

·       Have budget holder responsibility for the chaplaincy department and participate in budget-setting and annual review of service provision as requested.

·       Identify gaps in service provision and address how patient care, staff support, and the Trust's ambitions might be supported through Chaplaincy, and to share such evaluation with chaplains.

·       Monitor and develop the implementation of the Chaplaincy Team's aims and objectives and their commitment to the objectives of the Trust.

·       Encourage innovation and change within the chaplaincy team, and the service offered.

·       Respond to Freedom of Information requests, requests for information, complaints and other feedback received concerning the chaplaincy department

·       Undertake annual appraisals of chaplains and discuss personal and professional development needs during an appraisal, developing, agreeing and documenting action points.

·       Act as a role model for the multidisciplinary team promoting consistent professional and clinical excellence.

·       Promote the wellbeing of the chaplaincy team and have a concern for their welfare.

·       Monitor the sickness and attendance of chaplains and manage such absences in accordance with Trust policy.

·       Approve travel and other expenses of chaplains.

·       Ensure staffing resources are used appropriately across the whole of the Trust and manage the Health Care Roster maintaining accurate records for payroll.

·       Ensure mandatory and essential skills training requirements are met by chaplains, and sharing in the supervision and support of volunteers.

·       Be competent in the use of all relevant Trust information technology (IT) systems including documentation and record keeping in the Electronic Patient Record (EPR), email and ensure data is entered in an accurate and timely fashion, in accordance with Trust policy and procedure.

·       Be able to plan and prioritise own workload in response to patient, staff and visitor needs.

·       Arrange regular spiritual supervision or mentoring for self. 

This job description is an outline only and is not definitive or restrictive in any way.  It will be regularly reviewed and may be amended in the light of changing circumstances following consultation with the post holder.