Ray and I’s presentation was interrupted by my Mac crashing spectacularly, but I took questions while it restarted (“Why is your project not being rolled out nationally?”. My answer, ‘We’d love it to be, but we need partners to help!”). Ray showed real hand-written extracts from his company’s carer evaluation sheets, which was a great way to communicate how the film affected ordinary people in their own words. We also screened a short clip from the training programme, and of course, had we had a bit longer I’d have gladly shown more – it’s always the best way to show the value of what we have been doing, people instantly ‘get’ it. Ray also – usefully – told the audience how limited most carer training is (moving & handling, meds admin. etc) and outlined the reality of a sector where poor pay and poor training is sadly just the norm. I mentioned the growing role of the ‘impact producer’ in the doc film world and encouraged heathcare people in the room to be part of this new field of collaboration between films and heath / social care training and engagement. There is so much potential there. Audience feedback was great – especially a ‘Let’s get this rolled out nationally!’ comment.
What Next?
In many ways – as usual – the final plenary was where things got more animated and in some ways, critical – in a useful way. Someone asked, Where are the art therapists in all this? This was something I too had noticed was absent either in attendance in the audience or on the speaker platforms – it seems odd that this existing professional group isn’t contributing to this kind of event. This lead to discussions concerning quality and safe-guarding, especially around vulnerable people with mental health problems. Some in the audience advocated ‘just doing it’ if you were an arts professional with an idea that could benefit those with health issues, but as someone pointed out, that’s all very well if you’re ‘just’ playing a piano in an old people’s home. What if you’re working with people at risk of suicide though? Who ensures you are responsible and capable? Some arts professionals (and a representative from Arts Council England) pointed out organisations and courses that already offer training and case studies. A member of the audience highlighted that if medical and arts students collaborate during university, then they are more likely to do so afterwards when they enter practice – i.e. that the seismic shift that is needed to ‘fuse’ the prescribing of arts-based therapies alongside conventional ones, has to start early on in education, which I thought was a valuable point.
Finally it was asked, But how do artists find healthcare partners to work with?Many people present mentioned signposting organisations, but these were often local and /or specific to some of the major health challenges such as dementia or cancer. Word of mouth can work, but it was admitted that GP’s are just too busy to actively research creative opportunities local to their practices – it needs to be brought ‘to’ them.
Social prescribing (i.e. the means by which primary care professionals such as nurses and GP’s can refer patients to non-clinical support services – e.g. arts projects – will be national by 2023, and in London within 2 years. (See https://www.kingsfund.org.uk/publications/social-prescribing)
In theory, this move should facilitate a more expedient route between beneficial arts projects and those most in need of them.
