Summary

• All world religions emphasise the importance of health and physical wellbeing through, for example, religious teachings to visit the sick, rituals of cleanliness and the metaphysical power of religious practices and beliefs such as prayer and faith to heal mental and physical ailments.

• Religious and spiritual perspectives on health emphasise holistic approaches to wellbeing that look beyond the physiological symptoms of illness, thereby challenging the narrow biomedical approach to healthcare. The NHS systems in the devolved nations of the UK have produced guidelines for integrating religious and spiritual considerations into patient care, with Scotland being clearer and more successful than England. The Sussex Partnership Trust is one of the few examples of an NHS ‘spirituality strategy’ in England.

• NHS hospital chaplaincy has become formally institutionalised and publicly funded since it is seen to contribute to better patient care. But experiences vary with regard to the extent to which chaplains see themselves as constituting a formal part of healthcare provision. Better understanding among healthcare professionals of the religious background of patients, especially of less well-known non-Christian faiths, could help reduce health inequalities.

• Religious organisations undertake a variety of health support, palliative care and health provision services such as the hospice movement or the Jewish Haredi community in North London whose childbirth programme has been formally adopted by the local primary care trust (PCT).