CHURCH leaders have relectantly welcomed the news that chaplaincy services at the the county's three hospitals have got a slight reprieve.

The Worcester News reported yesterday how the League of Friends at the Worcestershire Royal Hospital, the Alexandra in Redditch and Kidderminster Hospital have agreed to fund one full-time chaplain, with the other full-time chaplain being paid for by Worcestershire Acute Hospitals Trust, until April 2008.

The compromise came after meetings between church leaders, the Friends and health bosses, who originally proposed reducing the three full-time chaplains and four part-time chaplains to one full-time post.

A statement released by the Bishop of Worcester on behalf of church leaders said it would now be "possible though hard, to maintain the service".

It thanked the Friends for helping maintain the service while health chiefs tried to balance the books and said the church would provice funds to help them.

The statement added: "A great challenge has been met with resolve, and the willingness of the trust to join in a search for a way forward is something we greatly welcome."

Mid-Worcestershire MP Peter Luff has expressed dismay at the "so-called resolution".

He said: "It is not good enough to rely on charity for an essential part of the service offered by our hospitals. It is not good enough to leave the future of the service in doubt after 2008.

"I sympathise with local hospital managers as they wrestle with a financial problem that is made in Whitehall, not Worcestershire, but this is not an acceptable way to deal with it."

Worcester MP Mike Foster said the trust had done the right thing by finding a compromise. But he said it should have done so earlier, and without creating the bad feeling it had along the way.