The Nightingale Project brightens and enlivens the environment for patients and staff of the Mental Health Centre through music and the visual arts. The importance of art in hospitals is now increasingly recognised, and many NHS Trusts are taking an interest in the healing environment. There is evidence that people recover and are discharged more quickly in an environment that has been made more attractive and less institutional, (visit links page), and the Nightingale Project seeks to enact this principle at the Mental Health Centre.

The Project has three wings: it organises temporary exhibitions, it raises money to purchase works of art for permanent display, and it brings live musicians into the wards to play for the patients. On the Past Projects page you will find information on some of the many exhibitions we have organised.

In mental health services there is an increasing emphasis on ‘social inclusion’; that is, we aim to enable people with mental health problems not to become marginalised, but to play as full a part in society as possible. One aspect of this work is to ensure that people using mental health services are able to access facilities in the community – that is, to take people out of the mental health unit and into the world. The Nightingale Project adopts the complementary approach of bringing the outside world (in the form of high quality art and music) into the Unit, helping to dissolve the barriers that sometimes seem to exist between service users and other members of the public. In this way we aim to reduce the stigma often associated with mental health problems.

Further information on the project is available from its Director, Dr Nick Rhodes, visit our Contacts page.