Funding for new Arts Coordinator to help patients during hospital stays

Nottingham Hospitals Charity has recently provided funding for a new Arts Coordinator, Megan Dawes, who will work with patients across Nottingham Hospitals. Here’s Megan to tell us more…

Hello! My name is Megan and I am the new Arts Coordinator for NUH. I am really pleased to be in such an exciting role, promoting arts for wellbeing across the Trust!

My experience of NUH Trust so far has been as an Activity Coordinator at the Wolfson Cystic Fibrosis Centre. In Spring 2021, I led the ‘Colours of Life’ project, kindly funded by Nottingham Hospitals Charity and in partnership with City Arts.

Two large murals were installed in inpatient and outpatient areas of the centre by local artists Peachzz and Kunstity. The murals help to brighten the clinical environment and provide a more welcoming feel for patients, staff and visitors.

I’m hoping to use my role to enhance other areas of the hospital environment through arts, and ensure that they are ‘Dementia Friendly’. I would love there to be more opportunities to engage with arts on the hospital wards, particularly for people with dementia.

This could be encouraging patients and staff to engage with music, dance, poetry or theatre sessions in any way that is possible! I want NUH staff to feel confident encouraging and engaging patients in arts sessions.

I will also be working with the Staff Wellbeing team, to add arts forms to their already brilliantly varied programme for all NUH staff.

I am most excited to meet and engage with lots of new people to get the programme up and running – artists, patients, staff, visitors! I will need lots of input and feedback to make the projects the best that they can be and suitable for NUH patients and staff!

I believe that the arts are fundamental to our daily lives – we listen to music, we watch TV, we read and we dance – they help to bring us closer and make us feel better. I hope that providing more arts opportunities in hospital will help our patients and staff to feel happier, healthier and better connected to the outside world during what may be a difficult time.