NHS GRAMPIAN APPROVED

Minute of the Spiritual Care Committee

held on Friday, 10 September 2010 at 10.00 am

in Seminar room, Summerfield House

Present:

Bill Howatson, Board Member (Chair)

Laura Gray, Director of Corporate Communications

Fred Coutts, Head of Spiritual Care

Stuart Hannabuss, Humanist Society Scotland Rep

Linda Oldroyd, Nurse Consultant, Patient Safety & Experience

Sylvia Spencer, Chaplain, Scottish Episcopal Church

Nigel Firth, Equality & Diversity Manager

Ian Groves, Part-time Chaplain

In Attendance:

Alison Hutchison, Chaplain

Mark Rodgers, Chaplain

Mary Innes

Item / Subject / Action
Welcome and Introductions
Bill Howatson welcomed everyone and introduced himself as deputy chair for David Cameron. Introductions were then made round the table.
1. / Apologies
Apologies had been received from David Cameron, Sue Kinsey, Harvey Grainger, Hassan Ali, Jane Alton, Margaret Coll, Sarah Campbell, Liz Tait, Elizabeth McDade, Kitty McDonald, Sharon Duncan, Jim Simpson
2. / Minute of meeting held on 12 March 2010
This was accepted as a true record.
3. / City CHP – Spiritual Care (Sandy Reid)
Due to a family bereavement, Sandy Reid was not present – deferred to next meeting.
4. / Matters Arising
4.1 / Spiritual Care Facilities in Emergency Care Centre (Graeme Smith)
Graeme was unable to attend due to work commitments – deferred to next meeting.
4.2 / Short term Post at Roxburghe House
Due to the financial situation in NHS Grampian, a decision was made not to pursue additional funding. Item can now be taken off agenda.
4.3 / Spiritual Reflections
This publication of devotional material from different faith groups had been prepared by Geoff Lachlan and funded by NES Scotland. This had now been completed but distribution had been delayed as publication was now with the Central Legal Office who was checking copyright. To be included on next meeting agenda.
4.4 / Hospital Visiting by Faith Group Representatives
This was in relation to a pilot being carried out in certain wards in ARI on restricted visiting times. Concerns had been expressed that this would impact on ministers but it was confirmed they were exempt from the restrictions and no difficulties had been met. It was agreed that it would be good practice to inform members of the ward of any visits and it was recognised that mealtimes should be avoided if possible.
5. / Spiritual Care Matters (Alison Hutchison)
A successful bid had been made for funding of £3k for a specific project to promote the book ‘Spiritual Care Matters’. Promotional materials were being produced to promote the book, including comic strips, posters, leaflets, etc. It was hoped to produce templates of the promotional material in order that other Health Boards would be able to use them. It would also be made available on the intranet.
6. / Bereavement Information Pack – National and Local (Alison Hutchison)
An audit had been carried out to ascertain how widely the Bereavement Information Pack was being used. As the results were quite disappointing, it was decided to review and update the pack. A national committee had been formed to produce a similar pack but with a section for local information. Two Board areas would pilot the national pack with Grampian being a possibility. The national pack would then be issued to all Health Boards. It was agreed to continue to update the in-house pack while waiting for the national pack.
It was recognised that it was difficult to make it an instruction to use the pack but it was agreed to discuss outwith the meeting how to make staff more aware and able to access the pack.
7. / ChapelRoyalCornhillHospital
The chapel located at RCH was in an ideal position and was well used at all times but was too small for Sunday services. The view of the chaplains was that the current chapel should be maintained and an alternative venue investigated on the hospital site for Sunday services. Discussions with Mental Health ongoing at the moment. / LG
8. / Part-time Chaplains (Ian Groves)
It was noted that Ian was now an employee of NHS Grampian after the transfer of sessional chaplains across to NHSG.
Ian reported that he was settling in well and welcomed being part of the chaplains’ team and hopefully having more access to training opportunities.
9. / NHS Quality Strategy
The NHS Grampian examples included in the NHS Quality Strategy were noted and these gave an indication of how NHSG activity fitted in nationally.
10. / Report to General Assembly of Church of Scotland
Comments had been requested by the department of the Church of Scotland as to why local presbyteries were not interfacing with spiritual care committees and a copy of the report submitted to the General Assembly was noted. It was confirmed that there was a local representative on this committee and that it was important that information should circulated. . / HG
11. / Snapshot Audit on Chaplaincy Activity
All Boards were asked to audit chaplaincy activity for a week in November 2009 and report against certain parameters. The NHS Grampian response to NES was circulated with the papers at a previous meeting
Included in the papers today was the national report of all the Health Board submissions which included a summary of some of the topics that emerged. This report provided powerful information in terms of the role of the chaplains and that chaplains should be viewed as part of the healthcare team.
12. / Consultation on Reflective Practice
Ewan Kelly, Development & Training Officer, was gathering together chaplains at several sites in Scotland to look at training needs and promote reflective practice as an activity. Five Chaplains from NHSG were attending one of the events in October.
A report from those attending would be brought back to the next meeting.
13. / Post-graduate Certificate in Healthcare Chaplaincy (Mark Rodgers, Chaplain)
Mark reported that he had obtained his Post-graduate Certificate in Healthcare Chaplaincy and gave an overview of the course.
  • It consisted of three modules, two done on-line and at several by study days . The third involved a portfolio of work
  • Concept map – described what the perceived the role as a hospital chaplain was, then debated that, refined it and wrote a reflective piece. The whole course based on chaplaincy competencies.
  • Requirement to write three reflective pieces using a module of reflective practice with steps to evidence the different competencies that chaplains should have.
  • At the end of the portfolio evidence had to be provided for all different competencies in hospital chaplaincy – also had a score of where you were at the start of the course and where at the conclusion of the course.
  • Found it a struggle in terms of the scientific approach but course made an impact in a number of ways - ie staff training, starting doing clinical supervision, more research aware, took place while reconfiguring the team and made more open to change.
Mark was thanked for his overview and congratulated on his success.
Attention was drawn to the fact that entry qualification stated that prior learning must include a theological component to degree or graduate certificate level which would exclude Humanists.
After discussion, it was agreed to support the Humanist Society of Scotland in drawing this to the attention of NES and the University of Glasgow.
There an issue around diversity where applicants whose English may not be very good. The quality control was going to be put on the mentor to say to the university this person is competent to work at a placement – might have to refuse. It was noted that, under legislation, it was a requirement for staff from non-European to take a language test.
14. / Spiritual Care in End of Life Care (Sylvia Spencer)
Several people from Roxburghe House attended the consultation meeting looking at spirituality in end of life care review. The plan was to hold a training day in holistic care at the end of September. A fuller report would be brought back to a future meeting. It was recognised that the services of John Swinton was invaluable in this area.
15. / Safe Affordable Workforce (SAW)
SAW had been driven by financial constraints and was being carried out across the whole of NHSG. It was necessary to ensure that the workforce was safe across all aspects of provision but also affordable. The first group of staff involved was executive and senior managers and then rolled out to the rest of the organisation, using methodology adopted in partnership.
This exercise was carried out in the Spiritual Care Department and proposals had been pulled together. One of the options was to look at the Head of Spiritual Care role, at the administrative support and some of the community hospitals might create some opportunities.
This would be brought back to the Committee at the next meeting.
16. / Report from the Head of Spiritual Care
The report was noted and the following highlighted:
  • “Singing for the Brain” - appeared on the cover of the Aberdeen CHP Newsletter recently and had been offered as one of the opportunities for the Cabinet Secretary when she visits Grampian in November.
  • Facilitated the visit of the Princess Royal to ARI Chapel – she circulated round tables and spoke at length with the carers and hospital representatives who were waiting in the ARI Chapel.
  • Team Reconfiguration – we now had a more robust structure with the following changes - Mark Rodgers working full-time at ARI, Jim Simpson working full-time at Cornhill, Muriel Knox now lead chaplain at Woodend along with John Duthie.
It was also noted that 14 visitors from Malawi had spent some time with the chaplains plus a number of site visits.
Dr Ali, the Muslim representative, was due to have an agenda item, but today marks the end of Ramadan so was unable to attend.
17. / Dates for 2011
These were agreed as:
11 February – 10.00-12.00 – Conference Room Summerfield
6 May – 10.00-12.00 – Conference Room, Summerfield
9 September – 10.00-12.00 – Seminar Room, Summerfield
4 November – 10.00-12.00 – Seminar Room, Summerfield
18. / Date of Next Meeting
The date of the next meeting is Friday, 26 November 2010 at 10.00 am in the Seminar Room, Summerfield.

1