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- Page navigation anchor for Provision of spiritual care in general practiceProvision of spiritual care in general practiceI read with interest Bornet et al’s proposal for an embedded model of spiritual care in general practice offering whole-person care, interdisciplinary coordination of interventions, and integration of care settings.1 There is an increasing awareness of the importance of spiritual care in holistic healthcare2 and I would agree with the authors that GPs working in an integrated care setting with spiritual care providers and other health professionals would be better equipped to provide compassionate and optimised care to an increasingly ageing multimorbid population and to manage the long term follow up of patients with chronic diseases.References1. Bornet MA, Edelmann N, Rochat E, et al. Spiritual care is stagnant in general practice. Br J Gen Pract 2019, 69(678): 40-41.2. Hamilton IJ, Morrison J, Macdonald S. Should GPS provide spiritual care? Br J Gen Pract 2017, 67(665): 573-574.Competing Interests: None declared.
- Page navigation anchor for Spiritual care is stagnating in general practiceSpiritual care is stagnating in general practiceThe embedded model suggested is currently functioning in several UK practices and being rolled out into local clusters. These practices have a chaplain fully integrated within their multidisciplinary teams providing spiritual care in line with the biopsychosocial-spiritual model1 and modern maladies approach.2Research has shown that such chaplaincy provision improves spiritual wellbeing to a similar extent as antidepressants whilst reducing GP consultations rates.3,4 These results justify the place chaplaincy within our MDT's at this time of workload realignment.Chaplaincy has also been shown to be responsive to multimorbidity and undifferentiated illness, both of which are core presentations the expert medical generalist encounters.4 Such generalists are ideally placed to refer on to the specialist chaplain within the MDT.Snowden has developed a patient reported outcome measure (PROM) to both facilitate spiritual conversations and measure the impact of spiritual interventions.5It is agreed that there is an ongoing need for training but the above evidence suggests the tide is turning on spiritual care and assessing its impact in general practice in the UK.References1. Griffin J, Tyrrell I. Human...Show MoreCompeting Interests: Lead for chaplaincy provision in Regent Gardens Medical Practice