Moorfields hosts inaugural patient and staff art and photography exhibition

PRESS RELEASE
Press contact: Ricky Feegrade – 020 7566 2628
                                   
3 November 2011

Moorfields Eye Hospital is hosting its first-ever patient and staff art and photography exhibition on Wednesday 9 November 2011.  The event, known as Insight, will be held all day in the main outpatient area on the ground floor at the City Road hospital from 9am to 5pm.
 
Visitors will be able to admire more than 60 pieces of original art, created by patients with a variety of eye conditions, Moorfields staff, scientists from the UCL Institute of Ophthalmology and volunteers from the Friends of Moorfields.  There will also be art workshops, where the notion that sight is essential to the enjoyment and creation of art, will be dispelled.
 
“Art in hospitals not only brings interest, warmth and colour into areas that might otherwise be cold, sterile and uninspiring,” says Dr Mariya Moosajee, who has organised the event.  “It can also reduce sickness, anxiety and stress, improving the outcome of treatment, staff morale and patient wellbeing.”

Insight is generously supported by the Moorfields Academy, Friends of Moorfields, the National Institute of Health Research and Moorfields Eye Charity.

Notes to editors

• One of the main conclusions of a 2004 study on the effects of visual and performing arts in healthcare at Chelsea and Westminster hospital was that art in hospitals reduces sickness, anxiety and stress. When displayed in clinical environments it can improve the outcome of treatment, staff morale and wellbeing of the patient. When exposed to visual arts during the preoperative process, patients showed significantly lower levels of anxiety and depression than those prepared for surgery in the absence of the arts.
• Moorfields is one of the world’s leading eye hospitals, providing expertise in clinical care, research and education. We have provided excellence in eye care for more than 200 years and we continue to be at the forefront of new breakthroughs and developments.  We are an integral part of one of the UK’s first academic health science centres, UCL Partners, and were one of the first NHS organisations to achieve foundation trust status in 2004.
•  We treat the entire range of eye diseases, from common complaints to rare conditions which require treatments not available anywhere else in the UK. We dealt with more than 450,000 patient visits in 2010/11 at our main hospital base in London’s City Road and at 19 other sites in and around the capital, enabling us to provide expert care closer to patients’ homes.
• With our research partners at the UCL Institute of Ophthalmology, we run one of the largest ophthalmic research programmes in the world and have the highest measure of scientific productivity and impact in the world for our research activity.
• For further information, please visit www.moorfields.nhs.uk.