The value of the arts in healthcare settings is increasingly recognised by doctors and patients, but the media often portray art in hospitals as a waste of resources. Artists need to play their part in convincing the public, argues Amanda Smethurst.
Over the past 18 months, the use of the arts in healthcare has come in for a thorough kicking in the national press. From front-page headlines in The Sun to documentaries on Radio 4, the line of questioning has been similar: why spend money on arts in health? Many of these media reports have been plain wrong in June of this year, the Daily Mail reported that health chiefs had splashed out £9bn on paintings and sculptures in two years to spruce up hospitals at a time when thousands of doctors and nurses faced the sack because of the financial crisis engulfing the NHS. The actual figure was £9m although the error was never corrected and the money was actually allocated by charitable foundations, funded entirely by donations dedicated to spending on art. And then there was the column in The Guardian last month which referred to the boiling insanity of the NHS buying aesthetically pleasing but medically useless object[s].
Flawed reasoning
This begs the question, what is it about the arts in health sector which makes it such a convenient target? This sector brings together two areas that the media (and not just the tabloids) love to attack: the arts, particularly modern art, and non-frontline areas of the NHS. That this debate has been initiated now, when our health service is experiencing change on a massive scale, is not surprising. In recent years, NHS expansion has resulted in massive overspending and, in an effort to rebalance the books, managers and the media are poring over every penny which is not deemed to be directly curing the sick. If theyve got £25,000 it should pay a nurses salary for a year, rather than fund a sculpture or a programme of performances. This reasoning is flawed. Art has a proven benefit to patients that is both long term and powerful. It is also exceptionally good value for money. To cite just one example, research from the Carle Heart Centre in Illinois has found that listening to harp music can improve respiratory function and relax heart rates, helping speed recovery from heart surgery, reducing time spent in hospital and thus reducing costs.
Furthermore, healthcare is not simply about making people well once theyve got ill: it is about preventing illness. Or at least it should be. An outdated view pervades which encourages investment in treatment rather than in prevention, and yet around the country there are dance projects, for example, which are helping teenagers with obesity and old people with osteoporosis. Healthcare is also about comforting patients and their friends and family through difficult circumstances, including death and bereavement. Most of us, over the course of our lives, will visit someone in hospital who is seriously ill. Anyone who has done so will know how difficult that experience can be and how much more difficult it is when the hospital environment is impersonal, uncared for, sterile and severe. People lying ill in hospital need rest, and yet we visit them (disrupting their rest) because we know they also need distraction, stimulation and care all things which access to art can offer.
Better building
The NHS is currently experiencing the biggest building project in western Europe. The last time such public building work was undertaken with such gusto was in the post-war period when, while we might never have had it so good, building design could hardly have had it worse. If the current crop of Private Finance Initiative (PFI) funded buildings is not to go the same way as the tower blocks of the 1950s and 60s, then they need care and attention in their design and maintenance. In October, the PFI-built Gateway Surgical Centre was opened at Newham General Hospital. Following extensive public consultation, the centre was designed with prominent public artworks and includes hundreds of pieces created by local schoolchildren and former patients. Oh, and the whole thing was completed ahead of schedule and on budget. Also in October the new Evelina Childrens Hospital in central London, stuffed with fantastic works of art, appeared on the six-strong shortlist for the annual Stirling Award for British architecture. The hospital has sculptures, interactive plasma screen installations and a fully functioning helter-skelter in the foyer. While the hospital didnt win, when it came to the Peoples Choice Award, voted for by the public, it cleaned up with nearly half of all the votes cast. Again, it came in on time and under budget. The public is coming to see the value in having hospitals which, rather than dehumanise, celebrate humanity through art. Nurses and doctors working in wards and surgeries across the country have now witnessed the impact art can have on patients, and yet these landmark examples of good practice are often neglected by the press in favour of a more negative spin.
Good work is being done, but the arts in health sector shouldnt be scared to learn from where it has gone wrong. Too often, art in health practice exists within a ghetto even within the arts. Established artists, working in whatever medium, often need persuading to take on projects in healthcare settings. Not enough have followed the example of practitioners such as the Medici Quartet or Cornelia Parker and taken their work into healthcare settings. The opportunities are there and artists need to seek them out.
For too long, arts in health has depended on the goodwill of a few generous donors, the hard work of a few impassioned artists and the support of a few enlightened physicians to survive. Weve left an empty stage for lazy journalists, attention-starved politicians and short-sighted bureaucrats to fill with rhetoric bemoaning spending on arts in hospitals. It is art that is under attack, and arts practitioners whatever their area of practice do themselves a disservice in letting this persist. The NHS is the largest employer in Europe and the biggest single institution in Britain. As such it needs art. If art is not integral to such an institution then this reflects on our society as a whole. Birth, life and death are all in a days work for a health service which also serves every sector of society. If art doesnt have a place here then where else should we expect to find it?
I would guess that all of ArtsProfessionals readers share a belief in the value of the arts to influence people, to distract, enlighten, amuse and occasionally to change lives. The challenge currently being made to the arts in health sector is a challenge to all of us and one in which we should all get involved.
Amanda Smethurst is Arts Service Manager for the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea and Chair of the London Arts in Health Forum.
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