Our mission
Paintings in Hospitals is the UK’s leading creative health organisation. It exists to support the health and wellbeing of people who need it the most, through the life-enriching power of art.
We work in partnership with patients and carers to transform and humanise clinical environments using quality art from our own collection giving hands-on support and collaboration – delivering practical workshops and sessions with patients, carers, staff and other vulnerable people. We work in libraries and other community settings to embed social value including expanding our work into more diverse communities. We engage with policy makers, politicians and other key groups to improve funding and education for creative health projects to help them understand the value of the work we do.
Established in 1959 we are recognised by the Department of Health, NHS, and Arts Council England as a leading provider of creative health. Six decades of experience and expertise has enabled us to maintain a unique art collection of over 3000 works which, alongside projects and engagement activities in hospitals and care settings, contribute to the healing process.
We offer three distinct programmes:
1. Our Loans programme allows all types of health and social care organisations to borrow art from our collection. We currently provide art for hospitals, hospices, care homes, GP surgeries, healthy living centres, dental surgeries, mental health facilities and many more kinds of care space. To enable patients, service users and carers to get the most from our artworks, we offer bespoke creative workshops and activities that provide the knowledge and confidence to engage with visual art. These activities often involve patients and carers choosing the artworks they want for display, giving them a say in their own care environment and care experience.
2. OASIS (original art for the socially isolated scheme) uses our collection to work with those who are socially isolated either through loneliness, geographical distance, disability or those at the end-of-life stage.
3. Art Meets Book taking place in public libraries enables marginalised groups to come together to use our collection to reminisce, make their own art, write poetry and develop storytelling which breaks down barriers and fosters a sense of community.
Find out more about working together needs to change. Here are our objectives for 2024 – 2027
1. We will design and implement high-quality arts interventions. We will do this by:
> Working with the Integrated Care Boards through the National Centre for Creative Health and their Creative Health Associates Team
> Roll out an accredited training programme in community curation of our collection
> Find resources to fund a community project manager
> Map priority places to roll out our programmes and assess likelihood of funding
> Align our delivery framework with that of the Creative Health Quality Framework developed by the Culture Health and Wellbeing Alliance
> Recording and conserving the legacy and social significance of our art collection
> We will uncover the stories of undocumented and lesser-known artists, their cultural heritage, and lived experiences to better understand the diversity of artists and artworks we have in the collection
2. We will work toward the development of public awareness of the benefits of creative health. We will do this by:
> Publish our Impact assessments agreed by NESTA and disseminate our monitoring and evaluation learning to our networks
> Develop a checklist for ensuring social value in all that we do
> Improving our Branding
> Developing our digital and social media strategy
> We will profile our Trustees and staff to enable them to function as thought leaders using their experience and skill sets on relevant subjects
> We will provide media training for staff and Trustees
3. We will identify and remove barriers to accessing the arts, including marginalised communities and those in geographically isolated areas. We will do this by:
> Developing our ‘place making’ initiatives
> Find multi-year funding for Oasis and Art Meets Book
> We will make our collection available on digital platforms such as Bloomberg Connects and Google Arts & Culture
> We will train participants in community curation of our collection to enable a local and wider geographical reach
4. We will facilitate the development of partnerships and partner working between the health, social care and arts sectors. We will do that by:
> Collaborate strategically with local authorities to enable PiH to lead creative health approaches within their place making strategies
> Work with our NHS partners to further understand the benefits from creative health and the work that PiH does
> Continue to work with the Culture, Health and Wellbeing Alliance
> Maintain a dialogue with government departments including DCMS and DHSC
> Engage with London Arts and Health
> Support the work of the Campaign for the Arts
> Work with museums and galleries to partner on creative health initiatives using our collection
> Further develop the relationships with ICB’s through the National Centre for Creative Health and their Creative Health Champions
“Health is a state of complete physical, mental and social wellbeing and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity.”
World Health Organisation, 1948
paintings in hospitals
Welcome to Paintings in Hospitals. We provide art for a range of health and community care providers to enhance environments and boost wellbeing. We represent a range of national artists and have an online shop so that you can also experience the power of art and its effect on people.

PAINTINGS IN HOSPITALS TO BE INCORPORATED INTO LEADING NHS CHARITY
Paintings in Hospitals (PiH), which has been lending original pieces of visual art to health and care providers for over 65 years, is transferring its renowned art collection and merging with CW+, the official charity of Chelsea and Westminster Hospital NHS Foundation Trust.
PiH was founded by Sheridan Russell in 1959. His job was to help distribute aid and support to patients being treated in hospitals. He noticed that when he put original pieces of art on the wall, it helped everyone to feel better. His founding vision for PiH was that all patients in hospitals, their families, visitors and staff, could benefit from experiencing original pieces of art. Now with nationwide reach, the PiH collection has grown to over 3,000 artworks by more than 1,000 artists. Many are very well known, including Bridget Riley, Antony Gormley, Maggi Hambling, Yinka Shonibare, Helen Chadwick, Elizabeth Blackadder, Josef Albers, Anni Albers, Gillian Ayres, Ben Rivers, Alexander Calder, Elisabeth Frink and Ian Davenport. The charity’s artist patrons include Ian Davenport, Sir Antony Gormley OBE, Maggi Hambling CBE, Anita Klein and Bridget Riley CH CBE.
For over 30 years, CW+ has worked alongside Chelsea and Westminster Hospital NHS Foundation Trust to create a new type of hospital setting in which art is an integral element of the healing environment. The charity benefits from an established network of patrons, artists and healthcare providers, and has a pioneering Arts in Health programme that builds on the robust body of evidence that outstanding design and engagement with the arts can improve physical and mental wellbeing. The charity’s renowned collection of more than 2,000 artworks is primarily displayed at its two main sites – Chelsea and Westminster Hospital and West Middlesex University Hospital.
The Chair of PiH, Professor Jane Anderson, said: ‘The visionary work PiH started 65 years ago as an outlier is now mainstream. Creative health – the idea that we pioneered – evidences the physical and mental health benefits of exposure to beautiful and inspiring art. Our founder’s innovative approach has since been solidly confirmed by evidence-based science, and the beneficial impact of creative health is now accepted by hospital administrators, funders and legislators.
'And so, to fulfil our mission to bring great art to patients, families and those caring for them, we are transferring our collection to CW+, a leading charity embedded within the NHS, with a long history in the creative health field.
'We share values and a passionate commitment to promoting and furthering the profound benefits of original art in health and care settings. With our combined sector experience of almost 100 years, we welcome this new era for the Paintings in Hospitals collection and are confident that CW+ will add significant value to the Paintings in Hospitals legacy.’
Current loans will remain where they are and CW+ will announce plans for the future of the Paintings in Hospitals collection in 2026.
Chris Chaney, Chief Executive of CW+, said: ‘We are excited to be merging with Paintings in Hospitals, whose work over the last six decades has had such a profound impact on countless people across the UK. We know from over 30 years of experience that visual art can play a hugely positive role on wellbeing and recovery, and we are committed to the long-standing shared vision of the two organisations that art be made available to as many people as possible in healthcare settings.’
For any questions regarding the collection or loans, please email arts@cwplus.org.uk.
29 July 2025
About our collection
Our art collection is the only national arts in health collection. Over 1,000 artists are represented, including Bridget Riley, Antony Gormley, Maggi Hambling, Yinka Shonibare, Gillian Ayres, Ian Davenport and many more and many more.
Paintings in Hospitals makes it easy for health and community care services to benefit from our art.