|PIC1|The Bishop of Lichfield, the Rt Rev Jonathan Gledhill, met Church of England hospital chaplains from the Black Country, Shropshire and Staffordshire yesterday for a private conference described as "a celebration of heath care chaplaincy".

It was the first time that all hospital chaplains working in the area covered by the Diocese of Lichfield had met together with their bishop. The chaplains say they hope such meetings will continue.

The Rev Alan Warner, Chaplaincy Team Leader of the Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital NHS Trust, convened the meeting.

He said: "The chaplains want to identify with the wider Church. We all hold the Bishop's licence in this diocese and it was important for us to meet with our bishop. We share the cure of souls - this is the licence that all clergy hold from his or her bishop.

"...We also wanted to be with our bishop, to hear what he wanted to tell us and to be able to make representations to him about our situations and about how we fit into the diocese."

Within the area covered by the diocese, chaplains are working in acute hospital trusts, in general medicine and also with mental health. Rev Warner said the role of chaplains in hospitals has become increasingly important.

"At certain crisis times of life people look outside themselves and their own resources and they are not necessary aligned with or members of a faith community," he said. "But they look to that type of help, support and understanding at times of crisis, so chaplains become more important as formal religious adherence diminishes."

He stressed the importance of the partnership with clergy in the parishes.

"Our involvement with the parochial clergy is absolutely essential. It's a partnership. All of our patients come from their parishes and all of our staff live in their parishes," he said.

"Our relationship with them is one that is absolutely essential to our work and theirs. We need mutual trust and mutual understanding of our roles so that we can trust each other with the care of the people in our charge.

"Our patients will go home, we trust, and the clergy are there to look after them. Their parishioners come into our hospitals and we need their trust and confidence that we are ministering to them appropriately."

Bishop Gledhill echoed this, praising the "super work" done by chaplains.

"Hospitals are hugely important for community work and they are changing all the time at the moment with lots of new schemes and new foundations," he said.

"The chaplains find themselves not only looking after the patients, as they always have done, but also spending a deal of time looking after the staff as well who are adapting to the changes."

The hospital chaplains also make a difference to the experience of parishioners in hospital, said Bishop Gledhill.

"Our chaplains have a really good selection of gifts and experience. They are a splendid bunch of people and, of course their congregations come to them which is rather different from the parishes," he added.

"But the parishes are involved in supporting the hospitals and the parishes are always very grateful for the work that the chaplains do when parishioners end up in hospital."