Celebrating Velindre’s Arts in Health Programme on World Art Day 2025!
We are immensely proud to fund the Arts in Health programme here at Velindre. Officially launched in June 2024 and with the ongoing efforts of our Arts in Health Coordinator, Sally Thelwell, the programme has flourished into an array of creative activities that benefit the mental health and wellbeing of patients, families and staff. Thanks to the generosity of our incredible supporters, we awarded £305,000 to the programme in 2024, ensuring it can continue making an impact for the next three years.
Wales is a world leader in exploring and expanding Arts in Health and our team at Velindre is at the forefront of promoting its value and benefits. Available activities are designed to help patients and staff express themselves, process difficult emotions, alleviate boredom and anxiety, and create a warm and welcoming environment at Velindre. The programme also aims to challenge health inequalities by representing diverse communities through various artists and art forms.
Staff activities
The Arts in Health programme began with a month-long celebration of staff engagement activities, allowing over 200 staff members to experience the benefits of Arts in Health firsthand. The programme continues to offer creative activities for staff including a proposed creative return-to-work programme and body movement sessions to help them decompress, unwind and shake off stress at the end of the day.
These activities aim to recognise the challenging and complex environments that our staff navigate daily by helping them to process trauma and feel cared for at work.
Patient activities
Patients and families at Velindre can also take part in an exciting range of creative activities. Since the programme’s launch, we’ve seen Velindre host singing projects with the Welsh National Opera and support patients with lung cancer through the power of music. Velindre has also hosted concerts with the BBC National Orchestra of Wales, with world-class musicians serenading patients and staff on the ward.
Collaborations with world-leading arts organisations such as St Fagan’s National Museum of History, the BBC National Orchestra and the Welsh National Opera have brought extraordinary opportunities to Velindre, benefitting patients and staff alike and giving them opportunities they wouldn’t otherwise have had access to.
Patients can also benefit from creative writing sessions. These small group sessions give patients, especially those with palliative care conditions, an outlet to process complex emotions related to their diagnosis and help them to connect with others facing similar challenges.
Another initiative includes the ‘Poetry Machine’, which brings a poet to the ward. The poet and the patient write a short poem together, leaving the patient with a meaningful written keepsake. The poetry initiative has also engaged staff by offering them greater insights into patients’ feelings and struggles.
Through a weekly Art Cart, patients can take part in small mindfulness activities, allowing them a brief respite from treatment and an opportunity to focus on something creative and positive. Patients have made birthday cards for loved ones and small gifts to thank family members for their support.
These artistic activities are always patient-led, with artists focusing on listening and letting patients guide the process.
New community gallery
Through a new continually changing community gallery, our own incredible fundraiser and Velindre patient, Viv Leach, has used her creative skills to get involved in the Arts in Health programme. Viv was diagnosed with lung cancer in 2023 and during her treatment found a way to preserve the beautiful bouquets of flowers she received regularly from friends and family. Painting her bouquets led Viv to the Arts in Health programme, which is showcasing her work at the centre. Viv has also run silent auctions to fundraise for Velindre and is even planning on seeking commissions from anyone who’d like a special painting of their own.
Viv spoke of how much she enjoyed combining her painting hobby with fundraising for Velindre:
“As the amount of paintings I created started to grow, and a few local people asked me if they might be for sale, it suddenly occurred to me that this might be a way that I could give something back.
I get an amazing feeling from painting either acrylics or watercolours and most importantly Velindre fundraising gets monies which they can use to make a difference to ongoing cancer treatment.”
Impact
The impacts of the Arts in Health programme are profound. The Arts have always been a positive medium through which people can express themselves and connect with others in similar situations. By focusing on the holistic needs of patients and staff, the programme offers care that extends beyond clinical treatment. Patients have appreciated the small moments of joy, as well as the comfort of one-to-one interactions with the Arts in Health team, with some patients even requiring less psychology support as a result.
Patients have said of the creative writing workshops:
“[They] allowed me to change how I am seeing the future..” and that they “felt a sense of liberation from the sessions.”
One family member praised the impact of the Art Cart on his partner:
“My partner has really benefitted from the art, it has allowed her to be creative and to take her mind off her extremely difficult treatment, having someone to speak to has been really positive for her.”
Looking to the future
By focusing on the hospital’s wider community and reaching beyond its walls, the programme offers continued care after treatment through monthly support groups at St Fagan’s National Museum of History and a developing project to provide mental health support to young people who have been bereaved.
Looking to the future, the programme hopes to fully embed art at Velindre Cancer Centre and the Welsh Blood Service by raising awareness and ensuring that everyone can experience the positive benefits of Arts in Health.
The difference you make
Your support is vital to the success of the Arts in Health programme. We couldn’t support this innovative and exciting programme without your generous donations and fundraising. By supporting us, you help to create welcoming, comfortable and supportive environments for everyone at Velindre that bring joy and comfort during some of the most challenging times.
