Lincoln Students’ Art Aims to Help Patients’ Health and Wellbeing in New 25 Million Pound Mental Health Facility

Work from Lincoln Fine Art students will support the healing and recovery of patients as it is integrated into Lincolnshire Partnership NHS Foundation Trust’s (LPFT) multi-million pound regeneration of the city’s mental health wards.

The £25 million investment into the Peter Hodgkinson Centre (PHC) at Lincoln Hospital, which will enable two new acute inpatient wards to be built, will feature two permanent bespoke artworks created by BA Fine Art students from Lincoln School of Creative Arts at the University of Lincoln, UK.

In addition to providing separate en-suite accommodation for patients, the two new 19 bedded wards will offer ground floor access to a courtyard area for peace and quiet. This outdoor environment will offer major benefits to patients with the students’ artwork, which is being specifically designed to promote the wellbeing and recovery of patients, decorating the courtyard area.

Associate Professor and Creative Engagement Producer at the University, Rachel Baynton, has been working alongside BA Fine Art Programme Leader, Dr. Steve Fossey, and the PHC staff team led by Clinical Project Manager Tracy Colpitts, to develop this brief, which addresses the specialist requirements around creating bespoke artworks in clinical settings, to promote healing and recovery.

Speaking about the project Rachel said: “We’re grateful to Tracy and the team for affording us this unique opportunity for our students to apply their skills and talent in service of the community at the PHC. We know the important role arts and culture can play in supporting health and wellbeing, and we’re excited to develop the artworks in collaboration with those who will most benefit from them”.

The students are working closely with staff and patients to ensure that the artwork reflects the needs of those using the Centre. At a recent workshop with patients and a team of occupational therapists, the students were able to chat through colours and imagery whilst also taking part in hands-on art making to generate ideas that will feed into the production of the artwork.

Dr. Steve Fossey said: “We are really excited that our collaboration with the Lincolnshire Partnership NHS Foundation Trust has entered the phase where our students have begun workshopping ideas with patients of the Peter Hodgkinson Centre.

“Our recent workshop proved incredibly fruitful. Using mindfulness as a point of departure, we worked together to visualise all manner of possibilities for what the artworks might look like. The students are now working with these thoughts to develop ideas back in the Fine Art studios, ahead of the next meeting with our collaborators.”

Tracy Colpitts from LPFT commented: “We are delighted to work with the students as we knew they would have really fresh ideas and new ways to integrate mindfulness and wellbeing into our outside spaces which we know will make a real therapeutic difference for our patients.”