About the spiritual care service

Your worldview, beliefs or faith can be an extraordinary source of strength and resilience when facing cancer and cancer treatment. At the same time, you may find these beliefs being challenged by what you are going through.

As a chaplaincy and spiritual care team, we can help strengthen resilience that comes from your worldview, beliefs or faith. We are also here to accompany you in time of spiritual struggle or distress.

Our aim is for you to see someone as close to your own spiritual or religious tradition as possible. If you identify as non-religious, we will aim to refer you to someone who shares your world view.

Our team is made up of Christian, Muslim, Jewish and Buddhist chaplains. We can also access a wider network of other faith and belief representatives, including non-religious.

We also have a team of volunteers from a variety of backgrounds who regularly visit the inpatient wards. If you are on a ward at The Christie, one of our volunteers may introduce themselves and our service.

What the spiritual care service offers

The spiritual care service at The Christie is here to provide spiritual or emotional support for patients. We can listen reassuringly in time of spiritual or emotional distress.

Some of the areas we can support with include:

• having to make difficult decisions
• bad news about prognosis
• relationship difficulties
• questions about meaning, purpose or fairness
• anxiety about the future, or guilt about the past

We promise to listen in complete confidence, without judgement and without forcing any particular viewpoint upon you.

Spaces for prayer and quiet reflection

Our chapel and Muslim prayer room have 24-hour access, and our multi-faith room is open between 8am and 4pm. All 3 spaces are located in department 57.

We can also offer resources to help you in your spiritual practice. This includes rosaries, prayer mats, scriptures and mindfulness literature.

Prayer requests can be left in the dedicated book in the chapel and we will include these in our daily prayers. If you are an inpatient, we can also come and pray with you in the ward or department where you are.

We can communicate with faith or belief representatives in the wider community on your behalf.

Ritual support

Roman Catholic Mass takes place at 12.15pm every Wednesday in our chapel in department 57.

Church of England Communion takes place monthly. This is usually at 12.15pm on Fridays in department 57.

You can also have communion, anointing, or any other religious ritual in your ward or department.