As outlined in our constitution the purpose of the United Kingdom Board of Healthcare Chaplaincy (UKBHC) is to safeguard the public by encouraging healthcare chaplains/spiritual care professionals to deliver the highest standards of care and support to patients and users of chaplaincy services.
The UKBHC does this by supporting and promoting the work of healthcare chaplaincy through setting standards for education, practice, and re-validation, giving guidance to the registrants and maintaining a register of accredited chaplains/spiritual care professionals.
The Register is a voluntary register of healthcare chaplains/spiritual care professionals in England, Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland and the Islands. It contains the names of those who meet the requirements for registration and agree to behave in accordance with the UKBHC Code of Conduct (2024).
The Register and Fitness to Practice procedures are similar to statutory regulation, but there are two important differences:
- First it is not mandatory to register in order to practise.
- Second, if someone is removed from the register that alone does not prevent them from being able to work as a chaplain/spiritual care professional. It may however be subsequent to or contribute to other action.
The Fitness to Practice policy and procedures is available to download as a PDF file along with a number of other related documents (see below).
UKBHC-Fitness-to-Practice-22-October-2020
UKBHC Restoration to the Register June 2017
Registrar and panel roles powers and functions