Home from Home: Building Independence in Community Health Settings
Lead Research Organisation:
Edge Hill University
Department Name: English, History and Creative Writing
Abstract
Home from Home is an Arts & Health project, or creative intervention, that explores the intersection between hospital acute care and social care.
The project team will work with the Local Community Organisation (LCO) in Manchester, which is part of Manchester University NHS Foundation Trust (MFT) and MFT's Arts & Health team known as Lime. The project will work with both patients and staff to explore the realities of community ward care and open up creative discussions about the lived experience of living and working on the four Manchester Community Wards identified.
These two particular groups - the LCO patients and the LCO staff - have been identified by the PI during a previous British Academy Innovation Fellowship project (exploring embedding the arts into healthcare settings) as hidden area of healthcare that is neither acute nor social care. During discussions with the Human Resources Business Partner who represents the staff of the LCO it became clear that there is a sense of being hidden within the Trust and the wider public not understanding what their role is within the healthcare system. The patients of these wards, whilst well looked after and able to make their rooms homely, are not however at home and many are seeking to get home. However, they are having to wait for community social care (provided by their council, not the healthcare Trust) to be put in place before they can return to their own homes. The patients are often disabled and/or elderly, and therefore cannot live independently. Some of the patients do not leave the community wards again.
Engaging with this patient group therefore gives a voice to a relatively unheard patient group and a staff group who work in a somewhat overlooked healthcare setting.
This project would be a pathfinder project that could lead to further projects working in community healthcare settings. The Head of Nursing for the LCO, the HRBP and the Director of Lime are all supporting and contributing to the project because the need for discussion around this system and the future of community wards such as these in the future is clear. The public may not be aware of the vital work these community wards do at this intersection between health and social care, therefore the creative intervention will see artists, patients and staff come together to create artworks that will explore their lived experience. The artworks will be part of an exhibition that will travel to each of the community wards and a film will be made about the project and the discussion it engenders.
The project team will work with the Local Community Organisation (LCO) in Manchester, which is part of Manchester University NHS Foundation Trust (MFT) and MFT's Arts & Health team known as Lime. The project will work with both patients and staff to explore the realities of community ward care and open up creative discussions about the lived experience of living and working on the four Manchester Community Wards identified.
These two particular groups - the LCO patients and the LCO staff - have been identified by the PI during a previous British Academy Innovation Fellowship project (exploring embedding the arts into healthcare settings) as hidden area of healthcare that is neither acute nor social care. During discussions with the Human Resources Business Partner who represents the staff of the LCO it became clear that there is a sense of being hidden within the Trust and the wider public not understanding what their role is within the healthcare system. The patients of these wards, whilst well looked after and able to make their rooms homely, are not however at home and many are seeking to get home. However, they are having to wait for community social care (provided by their council, not the healthcare Trust) to be put in place before they can return to their own homes. The patients are often disabled and/or elderly, and therefore cannot live independently. Some of the patients do not leave the community wards again.
Engaging with this patient group therefore gives a voice to a relatively unheard patient group and a staff group who work in a somewhat overlooked healthcare setting.
This project would be a pathfinder project that could lead to further projects working in community healthcare settings. The Head of Nursing for the LCO, the HRBP and the Director of Lime are all supporting and contributing to the project because the need for discussion around this system and the future of community wards such as these in the future is clear. The public may not be aware of the vital work these community wards do at this intersection between health and social care, therefore the creative intervention will see artists, patients and staff come together to create artworks that will explore their lived experience. The artworks will be part of an exhibition that will travel to each of the community wards and a film will be made about the project and the discussion it engenders.
| Title | Home from Home Film |
| Description | Alongside film maker Tim Brunsden, a short film detailing the research project was made, with staff interviewed about the centres they work in and a range of poems read out. Workshop activity was filmed to show how the poets interacted with the patients and staff, highlighting the important range of skills the professional arts and health artist needs, including a willingness to be led by the participants' interests, allowing the workshop to go at the participants' pace and adjusting any workshop plans to suit participants. |
| Type Of Art | Artefact (including digital) |
| Year Produced | 2024 |
| Impact | In the film, staff talk about the difference the workshops made to patients and how staff also enjoyed participating and how it made staff and patient interactions slightly differently and how the staff got to know patients a little better, with one staff member saying that patients had spoken more in the workshop than during their whole time on the unit. |
| URL | https://youtu.be/gSd2-uoHD8k |
| Title | Home from Home Poetry Pamphlet |
| Description | During 2023 and into early 2024, the Home from Home project ran over twenty workshops in Manchester's four Intermediate Care Centres. Professional writers Zayneb Allak, Helen Harrison and and Rebecca Hurst alongside project lead Kim Wiltshire ran workshops with patients and their families & carers, encouraging people to join in with simple drawing and sketching exercises, storytelling, poetry readings and creative writing. The idea was that the Home from Home project would inclusively explore people's recovery journey from hospital to home and their experience of using an intermediate care centre. The writers asked questions such as: What makes a home comfortable? How do you make yourself comfortable in your life and what are the things that you have in your life that give you comfort? People were encouraged to respond creatively to these questions, to help put themselves at the centre of where they are now, what their hopes are and tell their own story, in their own way, fostering increased autonomy as they began their transition from a hospital setting back to the community and their own home. Storytelling and working creatively also gives a holistic view of the social and healthcare environments people navigate and the perspectives of NHS staff. It was important that the creative workshops were inclusive and led by the interests of patients and that the staff working with those patients were also involved. |
| Type Of Art | Creative Writing |
| Year Produced | 2024 |
| Impact | The exhibition for the Home from Home project and launch of the pamphlet will not be happening until March 20th 2024, after the submission deadline for this report, alongside the final film, which include information about the exhibition. The exhibition will run until 22nd April, but other appropriate venues for the exhibition are also been explored. |
| URL | https://www.limeart.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Home-from-Home-Collected-Poems-and-Writings-1.pdf |
| Title | Home from Home Touring Exhibition |
| Description | After the workshops were complete, the team worked with visual artist Colette Whittington to use visual artwork created in Rebecca Hurst's workshops in Crumpsall Vale to digitise the patchwork images the participants had created. These digital images were then used to create cushions and tablecloths for the exhibition, made by Colette, and also to create the cover for the Home from Home pamphlet and the pop exhibition by graphic design artist Gwen Gawthrop. The exhibition used all the artefacts from the workshops that had served as inspirations for poems and the pop banner portrayed a living room scene, with fire, cat and framed poems as well as an explanation about the project. This exhibition toured all four centres where we had held workshops and we held an event at each centre, where we showed the short research film, played the verbatim poem and had a live poetry reading as well as serving tea and cakes to the patients and staff. Each centre was left with a tablecloth and cushion using the digitised material from Colette as well as copies of the poetry pamphlet. |
| Type Of Art | Artistic/Creative Exhibition |
| Year Produced | 2024 |
| Impact | The LCO centres had not had any art workshops brought into their centres before, and seeing how these workshops were translated into the exhibition and poetry readings cemented the importance of using creative methods for wellbeing with the teams. Whilst bringing in artists might not always be possible, it inspired the managers to create their own projects - the manager of Buccleuch Lodge began a storytelling project with her patients afterwards - but also gave the current patients a sense of joy seeing the exhibition and reading the work. None of the centres wanted the exhibition to move on! It also engendered more discussion around the concept of 'home' and what it means to the patients, whether they are waiting to go back to their own home, waiting to go into a care home, or frightened to go home because of the isolation. The LCO Comms Team also used the pop up exhibition for Freedom to Lead AGM event at MFT on June 6th 2024, with Katherine Irwin, the Comms Lead, emailing to say: It looked great and was a talking point while people were grabbing refreshments as it was close-by. Similarly to its impact in the care units, wherever it goes, it creates a sense of welcome and cosiness. |
| URL | https://www.manchesterlco.org/poetry-programme-brings-together-manchester-nhs-staff-and-patients/ |
| Title | There's nowhere (Quite Like Home) |
| Description | Sound artist Caro C and writer/project lead Kim Wiltshire worked with over 20 staff members to co-create this verbatim poem. Recorded discussions were held with staff around their roles, the role of intermediate care units and their ideas of home, for themselves and their patients, in the four intermediate care units during January 2024 and then a sound/music workshop was held with staff at Lime's studio on the Oxford Road Campus on 16th February 2024. Caro and Kim then formed a 3 minute verbatim poem using the recorded material, an audio piece. |
| Type Of Art | Creative Writing |
| Year Produced | 2024 |
| Impact | The verbatim poem will be launched at the Home from Home exhibition on March 20th, outside of this reporting period. The poem is housed on the NHS Verbatim Poems blog and is in the Home from Home poetry pamphlet. |
| URL | https://nhsverbatimpoems.blogspot.com/2024/07/home-from-home-verbatim-poem.html |
| Description | This project utilised creative methodology, mainly through poetry, to consider the concept of home for patients in Intermediate and Complex Care Units. Through these poetic explorations, staff reported how some patients seemed to find a voice, how they got to know the patients better and on a more personal level and how the end poems really touched the staff, especially the LCO Head of Nursing, Alex Barker, who found the poetry very emotional. The verbatim poem with staff also highlighted how much staff enjoyed and valued their jobs, as noted by Emma Flynn, the Assistant Director of the LCO. Finally, staff and workers saw the power of the arts and took on board ideas and methods to continue to use creative methods with patients in the future. |
| Exploitation Route | The full report, as submitted to the AHRC, highlights the qualitative use of arts based research and how introducing creative workshops can bring patients together, combat loneliness and isolation and therefore help with wellbeing. All the centres worked in were planning to continue using creative workshops in the future. This shows that whilst surveys and evaluation are important, using arts based research that produces good quality outcomes, such as the poetry pamphlet and the exhibition, can engage with managers and directors of healthcare settings on an emotional basis, which sometimes can push forward change in a way that more academic research might not. |
| Sectors | Creative Economy Healthcare |
| Description | Whilst the award is ongoing, there is already some impact. The Local Care Organisation worked with in this project has not had arts workshops from Lime brought into their Intermediate Care Units before. Because of this pathfinding project, Lime are looking to fund further workshops beyond the life of this project for these four intermediate care units. There may be more impact activity once the project has been completed. |
| First Year Of Impact | 2024 |
| Sector | Healthcare,Culture, Heritage, Museums and Collections,Other |
| Impact Types | Cultural Societal |
| Description | Summary and recommendations for designing the future of healthcare |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Policy Influence Type | Contribution to new or improved professional practice |
| Description | Home from Home collaboration with Lime Arts, Manchester University NHS Foundation Trust |
| Organisation | Manchester University NHS Foundation Trust |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Public |
| PI Contribution | As PI for Home from Home, I have created the logic model for the project, set the artistic outcomes and worked with the evaluation specialist to create the surveys needed. I have run the artist induction sessions and met with all the matron of the Intermediate Care Units. The project ran 5 poetry workshops in three intermediate care centres and one complex care unit in Manchester, and ran a separate Verbatim Poem workshop with staff across all four centres. |
| Collaborator Contribution | Lime Arts is the partner for the Home from Home project. Lime is the oldest continually running arts and health organisation in an NHS Trust (MFT) and is key to us being able to place artists/writers in the Intermediate Care Units that are central to this project. They are providing support through their admin team and providing space when needed with the Lime Arts and Wellbeing Centre. They ran the project budget and supported during set up meetings. |
| Impact | The project ran workshops as described above in three intermediate care units and one complex care unit. There were a range of outputs including a pamphlet of poetry produced from the workshops, a verbatim poem about Home from the staff workshops, a short film about the project that was shown at the four events from the touring exhibition. There is also a full report including the survey results, which has been submitted to the AHRC. |
| Start Year | 2023 |
| Description | Participant Creative Writing and Arts Workshops |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Regional |
| Primary Audience | Patients, carers and/or patient groups |
| Results and Impact | The project has run 5 x workshops in 3 x intermediate care units and one complex care unit across Manchester - Buccleuch Lodge, Crumpsall Vale, Dermot Murphy Lodge and Delamere House. The workshops were based around creative writing, with patients and staff working with professional poets and writers. The last session of each workshop block has been filmed and this will contribute to a final research film. Each centre has worked with around 20 patients and staff to co-create stories and poems about their lived experience of rehab wards and trying to set up social care to get home. The project also ran 5 workshops with staff to create a verbatim poem called 'There's nowhere (Quite Like Home)' with a soundscape co-created with staff from found sounds around the units. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2023,2024 |
| URL | https://www.limeart.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Home-from-Home-Collected-Poems-and-Writings-1.pdf |