About our service

As a chaplaincy team we encompass various faiths, denominations and none, working across the Trust to help promote the spiritual wellbeing of everyone in our hospitals. We are here to offer spiritual, pastoral and religious support for patients, their families, friends and staff. We will always be respectful of each person’s beliefs and needs.

We work as a team across the Trust and have a presence at each of our hospitals, visiting wards and departments on a regular basis. A chaplain is always available for urgent calls. 

Some of our hospitals have chapels and multi-faith rooms for prayer, reflection or simply as a place to sit quietly away from the busyness of clinical environments and other parts of the hospital. Everyone is welcome to use them.

Bishop Auckland Hospital

The Chapel/multi-faith Room is on the main corridor of the ground floor.

Darlington Memorial Hospital

The Mary Hodgkin Chapel and multi-faith room is just up the corridor from the women's centre. It is purpose built and incorporates a worship/prayer area, wudu (ablution facilities) and the office which is the base for the Darlington chaplaincy team. The chapel is open daily from 8am to 7pm. Outside of these hours, it can be opened by arrangement with the on-site security team.

Chapel services

  • Sunday Service is at 11am 
  • Friday Prayers (Jumma) is 1pm (winter) and 1.15pm (summer)

University Hospital of North Durham

The Chapel is on floor 1, near ward 5. It is small and compact, seating up to 15 people. Within it are three unique stained glass panels designed for the Trust by a local glass artist, from Consett. It also contains a uniquely designed collage work depicting the local countryside. The Chapel is open 24 hours a day. 

Chapel services

  • Morning Prayer is at 9am 
  • Sunday Service is at 10:30am 

The Prayer Room is in the doctor’s residence, on the ground floor. This has wudu (ablution) facilities. It is accessed by means of a code-operated lock; the code is available from chaplaincy or from any of the regular Prayer room users.

Chaplains can be contacted by our ward staff or you can telephone the chaplains directly:

In our community hospitals (Shotley Bridge, Chester le Street, Weardale, Richardson, Sedgefield) our ward staff will always be pleased to contact a chaplain for you - please ask them if you wish to see a one.

You can also email us: cddft.chaplaincy@nhs.net for any enquiries, however referrals should always be made via telephone.  

Out of hours or urgently

There is always a chaplain available for urgent calls, 24 hours a day. The on-call chaplain can be contacted through the hospital switchboard and, when contacting them, switchboard should be advised that the call is urgent. Chaplains on-call aim to attend to urgent calls out of normal working hours within 1 hour. During normal working hours the chaplain on-call will attend as quickly as possible, but because we sometimes work across several sites, we may not always be able to attend immediately.