NHS Must Cut Chaplaincy Costs

The National Secular Society has calculated the cash savings that can be made by the NHS, if it can just reduce the chaplaincy costs, and save about �18.5m a year. 227 trusts in England spend �29million on chaplains.

Importantly, the NHS must seek to narrow the differences in cost of hospital chaplains, more so the ones that do not value-add �clinically' to patients.

NSS executive director, Keith Porteous Wood, said: "If churches really support the Big Society, they will stop siphoning off NHS cash to fund chaplains."

The Archbishops' Council of the Church of England said: "It is widely accepted healthcare means caring for a whole person, not just the body."



Source: Medindia