Chaplaincy

Our acclaimed chaplaincy team is made up of qualified representatives from all the major faiths, and is on hand to offer spiritual and pastoral care 365 days a year to all visitors and staff throughout Bradford Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust.

Our chaplains will be pleased to visit any patient of any faith as well as those who find faith difficult.

If you would like to see a chaplain during your stay, please ask the ward staff to contact the appropriate chaplain for you.

The Chaplaincy Centre at Bradford Royal Infirmary is located on the ground floor. Turn left after entering the hospital via the main entrance and follow the signs for the Chaplaincy.

Facilities include:

• Christian chapel
• Muslim prayer room
• Multi-faith quiet room

The Chaplaincy HQ is also located here, and is open 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year for private prayer and quiet. Regular Church of England and Catholic services are held. Friday prayers are held every week for staff and patients in the chapel.

Members of the chaplaincy team visit wards and departments regularly but will also visit particular patients and relatives on request. Such visits can be a source of comfort to practising and non-practising patients alike.

Patients talk to chaplains about a range of subjects, not only religious. Spiritual distress can be helped by talking with a chaplain and the following indications of spiritual distress may help the staff to involve a chaplain appropriately:

• Sense of hopelessness/meaninglessness: the patient becomes apathetic or withdrawn.
• Intense suffering: the patient asks ‘Why me?’
• Sense of the absence of God/loss of faith/giving up on religion
• Anger towards God/religion/the clergy and the church
• Sense of deep-seated guilt or shame
• Unresolved feelings about death

Memorial service aims to comfort families affected by the loss of a child

Volunteers of all faiths and none sought to support Chaplaincy Service

If you have any questions about any faith, please contact the Chaplaincy Department on 01274 365819 or email Chaplaincy Administrative Officer Dawn Arnison at: dawn.arnison@bthft.nhs.uk

The Chaplaincy Service is available Monday to Friday from 8am to 4pm. All chaplains can be contacted via the office on 01274 365819. Alternatively, please email: chaplaincy@bthft.nhs.uk

There is an answering machine on which non-urgent messages can be left. However if you need to contact us out-of-hours, please contact the Trust’s main switchboard number on 01274 542200. There is some out-of-hours emergency cover (4pm Friday to midnight Sunday) which covers the Muslim and Christian faiths, and can be accessed via the switchboard number.

The Chaplaincy Department also have contact with some other faith representatives who they can call upon when requested. Please contact the Chaplaincy Department for further information.