"The taxpayer is required to pay £40m a year to cover the costs of having chaplains on call in hospitals. An obvious alternative...would be for patients to be visited by their own local vicar, rabbi or imam. "In a population of over 6o million, a little over 1.1 million regularly attend Church of England services. In hospital, even allowing for a few thousand panicky, injury-time conversions to faith, the non-believers are in a majority. "It is bizarre, and occasionally downright sadistic, that the grievously sick, the dying and the bereaved are forced into the arms of a priest, whether or not they happen to be believers." Source: http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/terence-blacker/terence-blacker-why-is-support-for-the-sick-a-religious-issue-1666750.html I hadn't even realised that we tax payers were paying for hospital chaplains. Surely £40m would be better spent on training and employing more nurses, buying new equipment, or on providin