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Body, Mind and Spirit: What Doctors Need to Know about the Scottish Health Department's Spirituality Initiative

DOCTORS do not ordinarily look upon themselves as having any responsibility for the spiritual state of their patients: they leave that to the chaplains. But a recent initiative from the Scottish Executive Health Department compels us to re-consider this attitude. In Guidelines, circulated to Health Boards in 2002, the SEHD required NHS organisations "to develop and implement spiritual care policies that are tailored to the needs of the local population". The Health Minister had earlier expressed his determination to "make spiritual care a central element of the way the NHS cares for people", and that such care should be undertaken by "the whole health care cornmunity ";' Although this is clearly a landmark step, it does not, in fact, signal a sudden radical change in attitude: rather a further step in an ongoing process; a previous crucial step being the WHO's addition of "spirituality" to its definition of the word "health" a decade ago. NHS Scotland is leading the way in the UK so far as this dimension of health care is concerned, and has affirmed its intent by setting up and funding a Health Care Chaplaincy and Development Unit in Glasgow, with a national Spiritual Care Co-ordinator and a Policy Development Manager. The Unit will support NHS Boards and Trusts in planning, implementing and improving spiritual care services and standards, in training and education and research. Already, NHS Boards and Trusts have expended a considerable amount of time planning a spiritual care service, but this initiative has scarcely been mentioned in medical journals.