Band 7 Lead Chaplain

Job overview

An exciting opportunity to join a thriving and developing multi-faith hospital Chaplaincy Service. The post holder will lead and manage the chaplaincy and spiritual care team through its next stage of development and beyond.

The Chaplaincy department is responsible for facilitating the pastoral, spiritual and religious care of patients their family, staff, students, volunteers and visitors of the University Hospitals Birmingham NHS Trust, regardless of their faith or belief.

The role will work to ensure that the spiritual, religious and pastoral needs of patients, their family, visitors and staff are met effectively, within a framework of individual choice, appropriate to their cultural and religious expression, to the highest standard of care and pastoral support, and within available resources.

The postholder will have exceptional listening and communication skills with a vision and a strong sense of vocation to lead our Chaplaincy and Spiritual Care Team.

We have a clear vision, and you could be part of this! If you share our values and you want to make a difference to the lives of our patients and their families and carers, and our staff we would love to hear from you.

Main duties, tasks & skills required

The post holder will ensure that the spiritual, religious and pastoral needs of patients, their family, students, visitors and staff are met effectively, within a framework of client choice, appropriate to their cultural, spiritual and religious expression, to the highest standard of care, and within available resources.

As Lead Chaplain be responsible for the operational development, oversight and implementation of spiritual, religious and pastoral care provision throughout the University Hospitals Birmingham NHS Trust within Chaplaincy standards and in line with the Trust's chaplaincy policy and Trust objectives.

To visit patients, carers, relatives and staff of designated wards and departments regularly and, when requested, to care for the seriously ill, the dying and the bereaved in consultation with medical and nursing staff; to maintain the quality of service as expressed through the relevant standards.

The postholder will have exceptional listening and communication skills with a vision and a strong sense of vocation to lead our Chaplaincy and Spiritual Care Team.

The post holder will support a number of improvement projects in relation to patient and staff experience across the Trust.

About us

We are recognised as one of the leading NHS Foundation Trusts in the UK. Our vision is to Build Healthier Lives, and we recognise that we need incredible staff to do this.

Our commitment to our staff is to create the best place for them to work, and we are dedicated to:

Investing in the health and wellbeing of our staff, including a commitment of offering flexible working where we can;
Offer our staff a wide variety of training and development opportunities, to support their personal and career development objectives.

UHB is committed to ensuring that our staff are treated fairly and feel that they belong, by creating a kind and inclusive environment. This is about equity of opportunity; removing all barriers, including discrimination and ensuring each individual member of staff reach their true potential, achieve their ambitions and thrive in their work. This is more than words. We are taking action. Our commitment to an inclusive culture is embedded at all levels of the organisation where every voice is heard, driven by our diverse and active staff networks, and at Board level by the Fairness Taskforce led by our CEO. We nurture a culture which empowers staff to challenge discriminatory behaviours and to enable people to bring their 'whole self' to a kinder, more connected and bold place to work.

Job description

*Please Note : For a detailed job description for this vacancy, please see attached Job Description*

Person specification

Qualifications

Essential

• The post holder must be from the faith

/ belief-specific background as outlined in the

faith specific appendix

• The post-holder will be in good

standing within, and authorised, licensed or

sponsored by their faith / belief-specific

background as required by job role

• University accredited Degree level

theological training or equivalent knowledge

according to their faith / spiritual tradition.

• Postgraduate qualification or

equivalent experience in a chaplaincy-related

discipline

• Eligible to be authorised by

appropriate faith or belief group to practise as

a healthcare chaplain.

Experience

Essential

Significant and demonstrable

experience of working as a healthcare

Chaplain with additional experience of

offering formal pastoral care in a

recognised, professional capacity.

• Demonstrable experience in providing

pastoral care within one's own faith

tradition.

• Experience of the multi-cultural,

religious and spiritual dimensions of

health care.

• Experience of complex ethical,

theological and pastoral issues that

may arise in a healthcare setting.

• Strong understanding of their own

faith/spiritual tradition, with ability to

articulate this clearly whilst respecting

and working with those of differing

traditions.

• Experience of working collaboratively
• Knowledge and experience of the

implementation of audit, service evaluation

and research in relation to national and local

guidance.

within a team

• Experience of teaching and training

others.

• Active participant within their own faith

/ spiritual community.

• Excellent knowledge of issues relating

to spiritual, religious and pastoral care

• Knowledge of national policy and

guidance relating to the managing of

an effective chaplaincy service

• A breadth of knowledge sufficient to

contribute to specialist and higher

education training programmes in

spiritual, religious and pastoral care.

• Knowledge sufficient to develop

methods and procedures for

appropriate and informed methods of

spiritual assessment for use by the

healthcare team and chaplaincy team.

• Knowledge sufficient to assess and

seek to meet the complex spiritual and

needs of individuals and to record

assessments, interventions and

referral to others in the patient

information systems.

Disclosure and Barring Service Check

This post is subject to the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act (Exceptions Order) 1975 and as such it will be necessary for a submission for Disclosure to be made to the Disclosure and Barring Service (formerly known as CRB) to check for any previous criminal convictions.

Certificate of Sponsorship

Applications from job seekers who require current Skilled worker sponsorship to work in the UK are welcome and will be considered alongside all other applications. For further information visit the UK Visas and Immigration website.

From 6 April 2017, skilled worker applicants, applying for entry clearance into the UK, have had to present a criminal record certificate from each country they have resided continuously or cumulatively for 12 months or more in the past 10 years. Adult dependants (over 18 years old) are also subject to this requirement. Guidance can be found here Criminal records checks for overseas applicants.