The survey and e-mail discussion revealed a great deal of diversity on the involvement of Readers in pastoral care because the activity is dependent on the individual's gifting and the time that they can allocate to this work. Nevertheless the Winchester statistics demonstrate a growth in the extension of Readers' duties into pastoral areas which suggests the need either to provide Readers with the appropriate post-qualifying training or to use Readers who already have the appropriate skills because the purpose of the existing training programmes is to help Readers develop skills in the area of preaching and teaching rather than pastoral care.

5.9 The Reader as a chaplain.

There is little evidence in the survey of any volume of Readers acting as chaplains although it is clear that chaplaincy teams are looking at Readers as a potential source of additional resources. An example is the chaplains at Southampton General Hospital who attended an area meeting of Readers specifically to try and recruit some of them as trainee chaplains.