Chaplaincy teams in the National Health Service are good value and bring added benefits and resources to clinical treatment, say health specialists responding to a call to stop their official funding.

The National Secular Society wants to end taxpayer funding for chaplaincy in the NHS. Matt Wardman subjects the figures to scrutiny, and is left with a lot of questions.

It can be hard to quantify the benefit of having chaplains, says Mark Vernon. Their work is not amenable to a cost-benefit analysis. But that does not mean it has no value or effect, just that it has to be assessed in human rather than statistical terms.

Health is not is not a reductionist industrial process, says Stephen G. Wright. It is about attending to deep human, relational and spiritual needs. This is what NHS chaplaincy is about.

A secularist call for an end to taxpayer funding for the NHS chaplaincy service has been described as "erroneous and simplistic" by Unite, the largest union in the country.

Churches and religious organisations should fund chaplaincy and spiritual care in the National Health Service instead of the taxpayer, says the National Secular Society.

Chaplains in the public sphere can play an important role in offering spiritual and pastoral support, says Andrew Copson. But they must be open to all, including the non-religious, who are unfairly marginalised in current arrangements.

We need to ask deeper questions about the 'punishment and reward' theology of targets, markets and excellence that has come to dominate health policy, suggests Savi Hensman.