Chaplain

Northumbria Group.; Cramlington, North Tyneside, Hexham, Haltwhistle; On-site; GBP 40,000 - 48,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Flexible working

Generous annual leave

Employer pension scheme

Job summary

Northumbria Healthcare is seeking a Chaplaincy professional at NHS AfC Band 6 to provide spiritual and pastoral care across The Northumbria Specialist Emergency Care Hospital and associated sites. The role is full-time with flexible working, on-call nights, and weekend/public holiday involvement.

You will join a diverse team delivering high-quality chaplaincy across a large geographical NHS trust, with extensive development and wellbeing programmes and a strong focus on staff experience and

Qualifications

• Substantial pastoral experience and counselling skills.
• Education at degree level or equivalent.
• Knowledge of NHS and healthcare chaplaincy environment.

Responsibilities

• Provide spiritual, pastoral and religious care for patients, visitors, staff and volunteers within the Trust.
• Liaise with the Chaplaincy team to develop and deliver high-quality chaplaincy services across the trust.
• Be prepared to work within the team and provide reciprocal cover for chaplaincy colleagues as needed.
• Share in supervision and training of volunteers and students as appropriate.

Skills

Pastoral care

Counselling

Education

Degree level or equivalent

Licensable by faith group

Job description

Main area Chaplaincy Grade NHS AfC: Band 6 Contract Permanent Hours

• Full time
• Flexible working

37.5 hours per week (plus on-call at least one night per week, plus some weekend / public holiday working) Job ref 319-8398239JN

Site The Northumbria Specialist Emergency Care Hospital Town Cramlington Salary £39,959 - £48,117 per annum Salary period Yearly Closing 23/11/2026 23:59

Do you want to work in one of the best performing NHS organisations in England? Work for an organisation that was voted the best acute and combined acute and community trust in the country, based on the experience of its staff (NHS Staff Survey 2022). Work in an organisation that supports its staff and focuses on staff experience as much as it does the experience of its patients? You can live and breathe in an area that has the cleanest air, cost effective living, great nightlife, some of the best schools with a wealth of history available on your doorstep. Sound too good to be true? Well it isn’t, this is what you get when you work for Northumbria Healthcare and, this is…the Northumbria Way!

What the Northumbria Way means for you:

• Extensive staff health and well-being programme including access to our specialist Wellbeing Hub
• Support and connection through a variety of Staff Network groups
• A range of flexible working opportunities
• Generous annual leave and pension scheme
• Access to lease car and home electronics scheme (qualifying criteria applies)
• Opportunities to improve your professional development through our vast training programmes
• Access to savings scheme via salary sacrifice with Northumberland Community Bank

We work closely with Kids First Nurseries that are based within our trust grounds at Wansbeck, North Tyneside and Hexham hospitals to care for our Trust family's children, they offer care for children from 6 weeks old up to 4 years. There are a number of funding options run by the government to help working parents, including Early Years Funding and Tax Free Childcare.

Flexible working offers choice in where, when, and how we work, ensuring patients remain at the heart of all we do. It’s open to everyone, and we aim to find solutions that work for both you and the organisation. All arrangements must be reasonable and balanced to maintain safe and effective patient care.

We are proud to be one of the country’s top performing NHS trusts – rated ‘outstanding’ overall by the Care Quality Commission (CQC). We provide a range of health and care services to support more than 500,000 people living in Northumberland and North Tyneside across the largest geographical area of any NHS Trust in England. Our teams deliver care from hospitals, a range of community venues and people’s homes. Our hospitals include a specialist emergency care hospital (the first of its kind in England), three general hospitals and community hospitals. In the community we deliver a wide range of community and public health services.

We lead in innovation and quality, having opened the Northumbria Healthcare Manufacturing and Innovation Hub during the Covid-19 pandemic and have recently launched our Community Promise – a pledge to make a real impact not just in healthcare but on the wider factors that affect people’s lives, such as education, employment and the economy.

Whilst Northumbria Healthcare are a highly innovative organisation, the use of Third Party Artificial Intelligence (AI) presents a risk to the integrity of our Recruitment & Selection processes. If you use AI, and it poses a risk to the integrity your individual recruitment process, we may withdraw your application at any stage of the process.

Job overview

The Chaplaincy team members help provide spiritual, pastoral and religious support for patients, carers and staff.

Main duties of the job

Reporting to the Lead Chaplain, the post holder will:

• liaise with other members of the Chaplaincy team to ensure Chaplaincy services are developed and delivered across the whole trust and that these are of a safe and high quality.
• be expected to work within the team and to provide reciprocal cover for chaplaincy colleagues as necessary.
• be expected to work collaboratively within multi-disciplinary teams, where directed and appropriate.

Working for our organisation

We manage Chaplaincy in four major locality hospitals at Cramlington, North Tyneside, Wansbeck and Hexham, plus a number of smaller community hospitals and clinics from Haltwhistle and Tynemouth to Berwick on Tweed, covering one of the largest geographical areas of any NHS trust in the country. Leading in innovation and quality – Cramlington Hospital is a state of the art Specialist Emergency Care Hospital, the first of its kind in England.

Do you want to work in one of the best performing NHS organisations in England? Come to work in an organisation that supports its staff and focuses on staff experience as much as it does the experience of its patients? You can live and breathe in an area that has the cleanest air, cost effective living, great nightlife, some of the best schools with a wealth of history available on your doorstep. Sound too good to be true? Well it isn’t, this is what you get when you work for Northumbria Healthcare, this is the Northumbria Way! Please read ‘applicant guidance notes’ before submitting your application.

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

The post holder will:

• work with the other chaplains in the team to provide spiritual, pastoral, and/or religious care for patients, visitors, staff and volunteers within the Northumbria Trust.
• be also responsible for designated areas and/ or units within the trust and will manage their work while being responsible to the Lead Chaplain.
• share in the supervision and training of volunteers and students as appropriate.

Person specification

Qualifications

• If already a faith leader, to be licensable by your faith group.
• Educated to Degree Level or equivalent
• If from a belief group, to be authorized as a pastoral carer with endorsement to practice as a healthcare chaplain by an appropriate faith or belief group (see NPSRCH Homepage – Network for Pastoral, Spiritual and Religious Care in Health).
• Education within aspects of counselling and/or pastoral care.

Other

• It is an essential requirement of the role that the post holder has a valid UK driving license and is either a car owner and able to use the car for work purposes, or has a Trust personal lease vehicle which may be used for the role. However, the Trust would consider making reasonable adjustments to the role, if necessary, to enable a disabled person to undertake the role

Experience and knowledge

• Knowledge of the NHS
• Knowledge of and sensitivity to a range of faith and belief systems.
• Substantial pastoral experience and skills
• Counselling experience

Applicants who are members of the Armed Forces, those who have a disability that requires support in the work place (two ticks pledge) and those who have been looked after by the care system as a child or young person (for example, in foster care, children's homes, kinship or local authority care) who meet the essential criteria will be interviewed under the Trust's interview guarantee scheme.

We recognise the positive value of diversity and inclusion and are committed to a workforce that is diverse, equal and inclusive. We welcome and encourage job applications from people of all backgrounds. We particularly welcome applications from Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic (BAME) candidates as BAME people are currently under-represented in our workforce as well as other under-represented groups such as LGBT+ and disabled candidates. We are proud to be a Disability Confident Employer, a Stonewall Diversity Champion, we have a Gold award from the Defense Recognition Scheme, and we are delighted to support Apprenticeships, Age Posi+ive and are a mindful employer.

Certificate of Sponsorship

Please note that it is a requirement of this Trust that all successful applicants pay for their own DBS certification if a DBS check is required for the post. The method of payment is a salary deduction from your first monthly pay.

Employer certification / accreditation badges

This post is subject to the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 (Exceptions) Order 1975 (Amendment) (England and Wales) Order 2020 and it will be necessary for a submission for Disclosure to be made to the Disclosure and Barring Service.

Name Revd Elizabeth Brown Job title Lead Chaplain Email address [e-mail] Telephone number 07816 450233