Creative Health
Vital Arts’ Participation Programme brings creativity into hospital life through three strands: Arts Encounters, Creative Pathways, and Innovate with Art. Together, they offer uplifting arts experiences at the bedside, connect patients with creative opportunities beyond hospital, and support new ways of working through artist-clinician collaboration. The programme helps improve wellbeing, strengthens community links, and builds creative health skills across Barts Trust.
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Arts Encounters
Arts Encounters brings inspiring creative experiences to patients and staff across Barts Trust - from bedside performances to pop-up workshops - making meaningful moments through art part of everyday care.
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Creative Pathways
Creative Pathways connects patients with local arts opportunities beyond hospital and supports creative practitioners to co-create bespoke programmes with clinical teams, building skills and capacity in the community.
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Innovate with Art
Innovate with Art drives creative health innovation by partnering with researchers, clinicians, and artists to develop and evaluate arts-based projects that improve patient outcomes and address health inequalities across the Trust.
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Commission workshops
Artists commissioned by Vital Arts to produce site specific work are invited to spend time with patients, delivering arts workshops and sharing insights into their practice and techniques.
A legacy of creative participation
Over the years, Vital Arts has delivered a diverse range of participatory arts projects across Barts Health NHS Trust, offering patients meaningful, creative experiences during their hospital stays. These initiatives have spanned music, theatre, film, visual arts, and literature - all designed with inclusivity, imagination, and wellbeing at their heart.
Children’s wards came alive with projects Spill the Magic Beans with Apples and Snakes, a storytelling and installation project inspired by myths and nature; and Comedy Club 4 Kids, which brought professional comedians to deliver side-splitting performances tailored for young audiences. Film Club empowered young patients to script, shoot, and edit their own short films, giving voice to their unique perspectives and experiences.
For adult patients, including those living with dementia or receiving long-term care, programmes like Musical Favourites (in collaboration with the City of London Sinfonia) delivered live classical performances to the bedside; Spoken Word Workshops invited patients to write and share poetry and personal reflections; and Music in Hospitals & Care featured intimate concerts by professional musicians, creating calming, uplifting environments across wards.
Projects such as One Moment in Time, a theatre-based workshop including beautifully crafted puppet theatre, live music, one to one bedside storytelling and puppet making, and Archive Adventures with Whitechapel Gallery, which used historical hospital artefacts as creative prompts, helped patients reflect and reconnect with their identities. Meanwhile, Fun Palaces celebrated community-led creativity in hospitals through drop-in art, science, and performance activities open to all.
Together, these initiatives showcase Vital Arts’ enduring commitment to arts participation that uplifts, connects, and transforms hospital environments for patients of all ages and backgrounds.
Recent projects
Flow State Sessions
A series of calming, creative workshops at Whipps Cross Hospital, supporting patient wellbeing through art, conversation, and gentle sensory play.
Baby Steps (pilot)
Baby Steps is a creative wellbeing project offering free guided walks for new mothers in Newham, inspired by public art along The Line.
Dance for Dementia
English National Ballet bring uplifting dance workshops to older adult wards at Newham Hospital, supporting wellbeing and recovery through movement.
Newham Music
A joyful partnership with Newham Music, bringing together NHS staff, local schoolchildren and musicians to celebrate community through song.
Erin Hughes
Erin Hughes, Newham Horizons, 2024, Intensive Care Unit and Respiratory Ward, Newham Hospital
National Portrait Gallery
National Portrait Gallery delivers two years of creative workshops with children at Barts NHS health Trust
Mindful art observation
Limina Collective joins Vital Arts at St Bartholomew’s hospital to develop an alternative way to engage with artworks around the hospital.
Opera at Barts
Opera at Barts provides uplifting, positive distraction for patients, opening the world of Opera to new audiences.
My Journey And Other Stories
Vital Arts, Outset Contemporary Art Fund, Saja Foundation and Art Night are pleased to announce a series of workshops at the Royal London Hospital School, developed and led by artist Shiraz Bayjoo.
The Islanders
artist educator Sam Ayre delivers a programme of creative workshops around the school’s curriculum
Community Dialysis Cookbook: Helping Hands
A Community Dialysis Cookery Book that will enable a community to share their dispersed culinary knowledge with each other and the broader renal patient community.
Older adults singing programme - London Symphony Orchestra
Vital Arts partnered with London Symphony Orchestra to bring music onto the 5 older patients wards at Whipps Cross hospital
Have your circumstances changed?
A collaborative project with Artangel exploring ageing, memory, and daily life through cookery workshops at Mile End Hospital, forming the foundation for a powerful public performance.
Being as you mentioned
Artist Ruth Ewan worked with patients across Barts NHS Health Trust to develop a set of flash cards for use in older adults wards
Creative Health at Barts…
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Kazzum Arts
Arts activities for children at Whipps Cross Hospital
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The Friends Music Project
The Friends of the Royal London bring a regular rotation of musicians to RLH