BRIEFING LPT'S SPIRITUAL & PASTORAL CARE TEAM

I'm at the Chaplaincy Centre, Daisy Peake Building at The Towers on Gipsy Lane this morning with Abida Hussain, Equality and Human Rights Officer, Integrated Equality Service, Leicestershire Partnership NHS Trust (LPT).

We're briefing members of the Spiritual and Pastoral Care Team on the NHS Staff Multi-Faith Resource. Four of their six-member team are here this morning:

• Revd Sally Martin, Lead Chaplain;
• Revd Frances Ballantyne (no relation), Christian Chaplain who covers Ashby, Coalville, Hinckley and Loughborough community hospitals as well as one afternoon per week at the Bradgate Unit;
• Revd Rowenna Bass, Christian Chaplain who covers Lutterworth, Market Harborough, Melton Mowbray, Oakham community hospitals;
• Imam Fazlur Diwan, Muslim Chaplain who covers the Bradgate Unit, Arnold Lodge, and also works with Community Teams.

Sally was helpful in the development of the resource, which contains appropriate information about the services of the Spiritual and Pastoral Care Team.

Abida and I have done a number of briefings on the resource to ward staff at various hospitals over the past few months (see blog entries passim). These tend to be brief (though, hopefully not rushed), catching staff at the times of handover between shifts. This morning, it's good to be able to speak longer and to discuss the content and use of the resource in greater depth.

We also talk about the Prayer Room at Lakeside, LPT’s new company headquarters. I offer a copy of the dossier compiled by Rosemarie Fitton when we were working with Highcross on their Prayer Room, so that LPT can benefit from its collection of examples of good (and bad) practice, not only for this facility at Lakeside, but for Prayer Rooms operating at its other sites.

We discuss the proposed Staff Inter-Faith Forum, which is still in embryonic form. We talk about how use of social media (particularly podcasting) can play its part in making this project a success.

NHS STAFF INTERFAITH FORUM

At the Chaplaincy Centre in George Hine House, the Towers, this afternoon, discussing preliminary arrangements for establishing an Interfaith Forum for Leicestershire Partnership NHS Trust staff. I'm meeting with Abida Hussain (Equality and Human Rights Officer, Integrated Equality Service) and Sally Martin (Lead Chaplain).

Abida, Sally, staff and volunteers in the Pastoral and Spiritual Care Team will form the core membership of this group. We don't think that anything of this kind has been provided before. It’s not intended to be a "support group" in the sense that existing groups for BME staff, LGBT staff, or staff who are carers are.

It’s hoped that this can be a forum for seeking and giving advice, for consultation and discussion, for sharing good practice and sounding out new ideas.

It can be a forum in which the organisation can consult with staff on issues regarding religion or belief that impact on their work. Staff input is required to fulfil requirements of the Equality Delivery System recently adopted by Leicestershire Partnership NHS Trust.

It can also be a forum for sharing updates and information regarding relevant issues (e.g legislation and case studies). Chaplaincy staff and volunteers could be invited to attend and speak about their experiences. 

We discuss the relative advantages and disadvantages of different venues as well as other related topics, such as the possible role of social media in amplifying and extending the reach and influence of the forum.

The next stage is for Abida and me to attend a full meeting of the Multi-Faith Chaplaincy team on Wednesday 22 February at which this will be discussed further and brought closer to implementation.

INTER FAITH WEEK, DAY 5: NHS STAFF MULTI-FAITH RESOURCE BRIEFING AT DAISY PEAKE

At the Daisy Peake Building, the Towers, this afternoon, promoting the NHS Staff Multi-Faith Resource that Leicester Council of Faiths has helped produce for Leicestershire Partnership NHS Trust (LPT).

I'm here with Abida Hussain, Equalities and Human Rights Officer in LPT's Integrated Equality Service and Revd. Sally Martin, Lead Chaplain of LPT's Spiritual and Pastoral Care Team, as we continue the process of briefing members of LPT staff most likely to use this resource.

This is the last of three lunchtime briefings this week which we (and LPT) are counting as part of our respective activities for Inter Faith Week.

MULTI-FAITH NHS STAFF RESOURCE

I'm at the Towers, Gypsy Lane, this afternoon for a meeting with Abida Hussain, Equality & Human Rights Officer, Integrated Equality Service of Leicestershire Partnership NHS Trust. We're finalising copy and layout for the Multi-Faith Staff Resource (aka The Task That Wouldn't Die).

Here's an extract from the introduction to the resource, which will give an idea of its purpose:

Leicester, Leicestershire and Rutland are religiously and culturally diverse. This multi-faith pack has been designed with the intention of assisting and preparing NHS healthcare staff to address some of the needs of patients and service users in their care. This multi-faith pack has information and guidance regarding cultural and religious practices so that patient care can be given with knowledge and sensitivity. 

A person’s religion and belief will be central to their well-being and will have a direct effect on their needs, their behaviour and quite often on their attitude to being ill. At a time of illness and being in hospital or in a care setting, a patient or service user may receive a lot of comfort from their faith and the opportunity to practise it. Patients and their relatives will appreciate their culture and religious belief being respected. This will help them feel valued at a difficult time for them. 

This multi-faith pack is offered to staff to help achieve the quality of patient care required by Standards for Better Health. The Equality Act 2010 also makes it unlawful for a person to discriminate against a person on grounds of their religion or belief when providing goods, facilities or services (whether for payment or not). These provisions cover both direct and indirect discrimination. 

This is only a guide; there is very wide variation in belief and practice. 

Leicestershire Partnership NHS Trust has a Spiritual and Pastoral Care team staffed by a chaplaincy team, who are a good source of knowledge and experience on how to serve the needs of a multi-faith population. Often the chaplaincy will be the first place people call when seeking advice or help in finding the right care. Chaplaincy teams help to facilitate spiritual or religious care for all.

When in doubt – ask the patient 

You can resolve many of the issues by simply asking the patient, or their visitors, how they wish to be looked after. 

This pack has tried to cover the majority of Leicester’s, Leicestershire’s and Rutland’s communities of religion or belief and the relevant issues. Therefore it is essential to talk to the patient about their health needs. All NHS services should offer access to interpreting services and it is essential to use these services when a patient has difficulty communicating their needs. 

If you are aware that a person belongs to a community or group that identifies with a religion or belief, then you should be able to use this pack to deal with the main areas which may be relevant.
The following communities of religion or belief covered in this document:

• Bahá'ís
• Buddhists
• Christians
• Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (Mormons)
• Hindus
• Humanists
• Jains
• Jews
• Muslims
• Pagans
• Rastafarians
• Sikhs
• Spiritualists

This pack provides the following information in the same order, for each of the faith communities listed above:

• Introduction and local information
• Mode of greeting
• Birth
• Examination of patient
• Particular sensitivities
• Washing, ablutions and personal hygiene
• Modesty and dress
• Special dietary requirements
• Fasting
• Family planning
• Abortion
• Care in serious (or final stages of) illness
• Blood transfusion / transplants
• Organ donation
• Spiritual advisor / counsellor
• Death
• Religious symbols
• Post mortem
• Burial / cremation
• General considerations for community nurses visiting patients at home

I'm going to be fiddling with this and filling in the few remaining gaps for some of the sections over the weekend, so it might look a little different by Monday morning. And that's the final deadline, so it will be the last bit of fiddling!

We're planning a few induction sessions for staff members on the content, purpose and use of this resource. They'll be taking place during Inter Faith Week (if we stick to our schedule).

AN HOUR AT THE TOWERS

A brief meeting this afternoon at The Towers with Abida Hussein (Equality & Human Rights Officer, Integrated Equality Service, Leicestershire Partnership NHS Trust).

Hopefully, we've fixed dates for a week-long series of briefings for staff on the new printed and intranet resources on faith communities in Leicester, as well as the establishment of an inter-faith staff forum. The first part of these sessions should take about half an hour, then another half hour shared with new and existing staff forums (e.g. BME, LGBT, carers).

TO THE TOWERS

To the Towers, Gypsy Lane, this afternoon, for a meeting with Abida Hussain, Equality and Human Rights Officer with Leicestershire Partnership NHS Trust.

The possibility of a working relationship between Leicester Council of Faiths and the local health service was mooted at the first ever meeting of the Council of Faiths I attended after taking up this post. Back in July 2007, at that meeting where I was introduced to the members, Philip Parkinson (then Chair of the Primary Care Trust) and Tim Rideout (Chief Executive) were there to speak about recent changes in local health provision and the establishment of a Department of Equalities and Human Rights. From that time on, we’ve slowly spiralled around doing work for the Primary Care Trust (as it then was), then NHS Leicester City, and now Leicestershire Partnership NHS Trust. We do have a Service Level Agreement with them, but internal reorganisation and turnover of staff mean that we still haven’t really go this relationship in good order. The recent proposal of us supporting the "Faith Communities Health Champions" initiative has focused the need to straighten out our working arrangements.

At this late stage of the game, we're looking to show some quick wins, so Abida and I agree on a few pieces of work that could be done and dusted before Christmas.

I can't allow my account of this meeting to go by without saying a little bit about the Towers itself. It was founded in 1869 as the Leicester Borough Asylum, then served as the Towers Hospital (as it was rneamed in 1947) until its closure as a treatment facility in 2005. Without really knowing anything about it (or even where it was) I was aware of it from my earliest times living around here as a place with a grim reputation. Occasionally it would feature in unpleasant and unfortunate news stories in the local media. Having taught for a few years inside the mental health service, many of the clients I’ve worked with would freeze at the mention of it – whether or not they’d ever been inside it themselves.

When I came to my fist meeting here, a few years ago, the person who received me then remarked, as we walked through the long, echoing tiled corridors, that you just knew that this place was originally established as an asylum, not a hospital. Hard to put into words exactly why that was so, but it most certainly was.


For an unsual vew of the Towers, visit the Urban Exploration Forum.