Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether confidential pastoral services are provided for NHS staff.

The Department does not collect data on whether National Health Service organisations, who are responsible for helping their staff maintain and improve their physical and mental health and wellbeing, provide confidential pastoral care. Some trusts may offer local chaplaincy and/or counselling services to their staff.

We are supporting the NHS in making decisions on the type of services they offer their staff including confidential pastoral care through the NHS staff health and wellbeing framework and NHS Improvement’s health and wellbeing collaborative. Both incorporate the mental health standards in ‘Thriving at Work – a review of mental health and employers’ commissioned by the Government.