A Leap of Faith? Enabling Hospice Staff to Meet the Spiritual Needs of Patients

Abstract

The DMin thesis which this paper describes arose from the author’s experiences in enabling staff at the hospice where he served as chaplain to engage with issues of spiritual care. While spirituality had risen sharply up the agenda in healthcare, he found the staff he worked with were often unclear about what was expected of them and how to respond when spiritual issues were identified. After undertaking a brief survey of current thinking on spiritual care, with reference to Jürgen Moltmann and others, the author describes a research project based on interviews with hospice staff. This led to developing ideas on how to increase the sensitivity of staff to spiritual matters and to enable them to become more confident in approaching them. The paper concludes by examining a number of questions resulting from the study on the nature of spirituality in a healthcare setting and on how the church might have a positive input in this area.