Home from Home

An AHRC funded practice as research project working with Intermediate Care Units and a Complex Care unit in Manchester through Manchester University NHS Foundation Trust with Lime Arts. The project used writing and poetry to explore what the concept of home meant to both staff who work in the units and patients who are living in the units, many of whom are hoping to get home. The project worked with 3 poets, a film maker, a sound artist, project manager and 2 visual artists to create art works that told the story of these patients and staff.

Intermediate Care Centres, or ICUs, are often known as rehab wards as this is that intermediate step between the acute ward of a hospital and getting back home after illness. Often described by those who work in them as a 'home from home' this project used that theme and explored the meaning of home with both patients and staff through creative writing and art.

The findings were explored through poetry collected in a booklet, through a verbatim poem completed with staff, through a research film and through a travelling exhibition with four events in each centre.