Community Focus – Healing arts

Lara Ellen Dose introduces the diverse field of arts in health.

The opportunities that the arts offer to healthcare and the health of the nation are becoming more widely recognised. The Department of Health is currently engaged in its largest ever building and refurbishment initiative for both primary care, through its Local Improvement Finance Trust (LIFT) scheme, and acute care through the Private Finance Initiative (PFI) programme. The importance of incorporating the arts into the fabric of hospital buildings and the ethos of these organisations has consistently been emphasised. The message is getting across. This is evidenced by several NHS Trusts allocating 1% of their capital budget to the arts, and the arts being used as part of the consultation process for PFI bidders.

The arts in health sector is broad and vast. It encompasses public performances of dance, music or drama ? such as The Birmingham Royal Ballet?s performances in cancer wards and hospices. It also includes artists in residence working in public areas such as waiting rooms, or site-specific commissioned artwork in hospitals, hospices, surgeries, walk-in centres and day care centres ? such as ?Light Touch?, an installation by artist Hanna Murphy that was commissioned at the Acute Unit at Wythenshawe Hospital. Artists are also employed in a practical way: to look at signage; to design and produce doorknobs and handrails; to create curtains for the bedside; or, in the case of, landscape artists to improve disused courtyards. Many NHS Trusts are now employing paid or voluntary arts co-ordinators, and many have dedicated arts teams. There is much anecdotal evidence suggesting that the arts can reduce the use of painkilling drugs, positively affect clinical outcomes and patient recovery rates, lower staff turnover and bring cost benefits.

Community arts in health is firmly on the agenda of local government agencies. Awareness has been raised as to its value in achieving social as well as health targets. Here the arts are used to deliver health promotion messages on issues such as teenage pregnancy, prostitution, drug and substance abuse, obesity, heart disease, testicular cancer and breast cancer. Artists work directly with a cross-section of a target audience, and projects seek to affect behavioural change, and to bring isolated and impoverished communities to healthcare facilities and treatment centres. A good example can be found in Walsall where the Walsall Community Arts Team (part of Walsall Metropolitan Borough Council) pioneered an arts project aimed specifically at encouraging Asian women to take up breast screening opportunities. In such cases, it is clear that the arts are more effective at communicating the messages that local authorities and health authorities have been trying to share through leaflets and brochures.

Another area where arts in health is thriving is ?medical humanities? ? the term applied to the use of the arts and humanities in medical education, as well as practice. This might involve visual artists and live models in a dissection class in medical school; a doctor using creative writing and poetry to improve what is recorded in medical notes; or forum theatre-based development courses for palliative care nurses in a community centre. Finally, any overview of arts in health must also include arts therapy. Although a distinct field of practice in itself, there is now much focus on how the two areas complement each other.

Lara Ellen Dose is Director of the National Network for the Arts in Health, the national organisation for the arts in health field. t: 020 7261 1317; e: [email protected]; w: http://www.nnah.org.uk