Head of Chaplaincy

Job overview

• An exciting opportunity has arisen for a suitably qualified, experienced, visionary and talented healthcare chaplain to join East Suffolk & North Essex NHS Foundation Trust as Head of Chaplaincy. ESNEFT’s Head of Chaplaincy provides strategic leadership to the Trust, leading on pastoral, spiritual and religious care within the organisation, and leading and managing the chaplaincy team. The Head of Chaplaincy role offers an exciting opportunity to lead a large chaplaincy team across multiple sites in a busy and culturally diverse organisation, and to further develop a multi-faith and belief approach to chaplaincy provision. The Head of Chaplaincy role requires taking full responsibility for the role across the whole Trust whilst maintaining a level of operational chaplaincy commitment through the provision of face-to-face pastoral, spiritual and religious care to patients, relatives or staff members of any religion or belief, and by participating in the 24/7 on-call service and weekend working. The successful candidate will be educated to Master’s Degree Level or equivalent in experience, in an appropriate subject such as chaplaincy studies or pastoral theology and have substantial healthcare chaplaincy and management experience within the NHS, and in line with current UK Board of Healthcare Chaplaincy guidance. They will need to be able to use your own personal transport for chaplaincy duties. Previous applicants do not need to apply.

Main duties of the job

• Develop, implement, monitor and review the strategy of the chaplaincy service in line with current NHS England chaplaincy guidance and guidance from professional and regulatory bodies e.g. UKBHC chaplaincy Code of Conduct, and the Trust’s corporate agenda in consultation with the Deputy Director of Nursing Quality
• Manage the chaplaincy budget and charitable funds within Trust procedures and contribute to the drawing up of department/service budgets or financial initiatives. Act as an authorised signatory for small cash/ financial payment i.e. overtime, travel, ordering stock etc.
• Contribute to the strategic and operational working of the chaplaincy service through collaboration with the wider patient services meetings, ‘away-days’ and other relevant meetings and project work. Contribute towards policy implementation, providing advice on best practice and contribute to relevant decision making as part of patient services
• Further the development of the chaplaincy service and pastoral, spiritual and religious care in the Trust/community by making clear links between (a) the Trusts corporate agenda, (b) the spiritual, religious and pastoral needs of staff and patients, and (c) the resources of chaplaincy care
• Identify financial resources to develop the human resources side of the department to meet national guidelines within a multi-faith and belief framework

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

For full details of the responsibilities and duties of this role please see the attached job description.