“I was very ill and feeling very low. I spent six weeks in a room on my own after contracting MRSA and was expecting to die. When I didn’t, I started to question my existence and my faith,” recalls Andrzej Nowobilski, 52, an IT consultant.

In 2001 he was admitted to St Thomas’ Hospital after a motorcycle accident in Central London. Up to that point, Nowobilski had been a nominal Roman Catholic, attending church only for weddings, funerals, at Christmas and at Easter. Yet he attributes his recovery not only to the doctors, but also to the hospital’s chaplaincy team. “The chaplains from all the Christian denominations visited me and we prayed together and we talked about my fears and pain. They answered a lot of questions I had. They were very grounding, very compassionate. I don’t know what I’d have done without the chaplains. I couldn’t have recovered without them. Just seeing a priest walking through a ward can give you a spiritual lift.”

Supporters of hospital chaplains believe they are a vital service in the NHS, for patients and staff, and this is acknowledged by the NHS in Caring for the Spirit, a statement published in 2003. The chaplaincy teams are not exclusively Christian, and some hospitals, including Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust, have multi-faith prayer spaces as well as a chapel.

However, financial difficulties in the NHS mean that the role of chaplains is now under threat. Theos, the theology think-tank, claimed in a report last year that because of a cash crisis one in four NHS trusts had made significant cuts to hospital chaplaincies. In 2006, for example, Worcestershire Acute Hospitals NHS Trust dispensed with five of its seven chaplains. There are now 425 full-time chaplains and 3,000 part-time ones in Britain. Unlike prisons and the Armed Services, the NHS is under no legal obligation either to employ chaplains or to ask patients what their religious needs are. Nevertheless, some trusts see this as part of their code of good practice.

Last year an All-Parliamentary Group on Chaplains in the NHS was formed and is to launch an inquiry into their role. Mike Penning, Conservative MP for Hemel Hempstead and Shadow Minister for Health, the group’s chairman, said: “The evidence about chaplaincies is very anecdotal. We need to find out where they need to go. I need to hear from those who think chaplaincies are fine and also from those who think it’s a problem.

“We are conscious that this should not just be a Christian inquiry. The country has changed since the NHS was set up.” He said that Jewish, Muslim, Sikh, Hindu and other communities would be asked for their views.

The Catholic Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales has welcomed the inquiry, which hopes to publish its findings in December. The bishops have set up a healthcare reference group to promote the work of its chaplains. It has also published a guide for NHS managers and trusts on providing care to Roman Catholic patients, and, under the Freedom of Information Act, it is conducting a survey into religious belief in the NHS. Last year, Cardinal Javier Lozano Barragán, president of the Pontifical Council for Health Pastoral Care, addressed the healthcare reference group’s seminar in London, while Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor, Archbishop of Westminster, attended the NHS Confederation Conference.

Father Peter Scott, the bishops’ chaplaincy liaison officer, and a lecturer on the country’s only degree course in healthcare chaplaincy, at St Mary’s University College, Twickenham, says that many patients find chaplains very supportive. “Being a patient can be one of the most stressful times in a person’s life,” he said. “Examinations, diagnoses and treatment can cause people to withdraw from the world and leave them in a vulnerable place. Patients find their faith allows them to endure their time in hospital, it answers many basic human questions about why suffering happens, and provides religious rituals that leave them with a sense of calm and ease.”

Father Scott is concerned that some NHS managers are moving towards a generic model of chaplaincy. The Department of Health’s 2003 guidelines make it clear that while there is some shared work between chaplains, people’s religious needs should be met by someone of their own faith. “Patients want their individual-faith chaplains rather than one kindhearted soul who is expected to respond to all the different religions,” he said.

Jim McManus, the assistant director of health improvement with Barking and Dagenham Primary Care Trust, said that it is difficult to prove to managers that a chaplain is good value for money and provides something that psychologists or therapists cannot.“The Caring for the Spirit programme has not delivered,” he said. “Many trusts have never heard of it, while others ignore it. What we need is a national initiative to support NHS trusts to provide good-quality spiritual care to patients and staff, and one that values faith communities rather than sees them as obstacles.”