Wellbeing

Surrey and Sussex Healthcare NHS Trust.

‘While my patients rest in bed looking at the pictures on the wall I want to encourage them to imagine visiting these local places when they are back to health.’

-STAFF MEMBER.

Surrey and Sussex Healthcare NHS Trust provides emergency and non-emergency services to the residents of east Surrey, north-east West Sussex, and South Croydon, including the major towns of Crawley, Horsham, Reigate and Redhill.

Can art help to aid patient recovery? The nursing staff on Woodland ward, East Surrey Hospital believe art can make a contribution. A series of pictures with scenes from nearby Reigate Priory park and Abinger Hammer in Surrey now hang on the walls in patient rooms.

One staff member talked about how nursing care is for both the body and the mind. Speaking from her experience, she said, ‘while my patients rest in bed looking at the pictures on the wall I want to encourage them to imagine visiting these local places when they are back to health’.

Recently, during recovery, a patient said ‘The colours were swirling around me like a whirlpool and then I saw the picture on the wall. It helped me focus and I did not feel so scared anymore’.

In addition to the pictures on Woodland ward, there is also a small display of iPad drawings, including ‘Morning Mist’ (pictured below, drawn across three iPad canvases, first displayed at Apple, London, 2012 and 13), on the Surgical Assessment Unit (SAU) corridor at East Surrey Hospital. This particular drawing was first displayed at an Apple event in London in 2014.

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