Regardless of faith, this nurse was employed as a community nurse by the local primary care trust.

As an employee, entering into the patient's house under the invitation surrounding her employment, she has to abide by the equality scheme her employer is obliged to hold.

the rights, wrongs or indifferences are immaterial, she has been trained to know better than to offer to pray for a patient.

This debate was had back in the 1950's. To offer to pray can be seen by a patient as a clinical prognosis, either that the condition is terminal or that prayer is clinically effective.

The NHS can only work to methods where clinical evidence exists. It was grossly irresponsible for the nurse to offer to pray. The fact that this distressed the patient enough to complain says it all.

I used to chair an NHS primary care trust and if it were my trust, I would expect my chief executive to take this very seriously. Whilst the nurse meant well, it had an adverse effect on the patient. This is why there are rules about what you say whilst carrying out your duties.

It is nothing about types of religion. It is about objective carrying out of your duties as per your terms of employment. If religion had a place in medicine, there would be many problems with availability of clinicians. Fortunately, clinicians keep their religion at home and not in the workplace. The number of Muslim doctors in the UK for instance is in the thousands. If religion crept into healthcare, many of these people would feel uncomfortable having close contact with patients of the opposite sex. As religion is kept at home, those discomforts do not apply.

So, a story regarding preventing somebody from praying needs a close look at all the facts and connotations before leaping to conclusions. This nurse did something her employer does not allow, a distressed patient complained and the nurse is being disciplined.

The system works then.