Running Online Creative Writing Workshops for NHS Staff During the Pandemic

Since the pandemic, as the Nursing Times has reported, ‘Almost two-thirds of nurses feel their mental health has deteriorated’ (Ford, Nursing Times, March 2021).

Throughout 2020/2021, writer Kim Wiltshire worked with Lime, the Arts Department of Manchester NHS Foundation Trust (MFT), on a series of online creative workshops under the title of Hospital Arts Social Club (HASC). The success of these workshops, as evaluated by Alex Winkcup, led MFT’s Employee Health and Wellbeing Team to approach Lime to see if these workshops could look specifically at mental wellbeing. A large proportion of these workshops were creative writing, due to both demand but also because writing requires little in the way of specialist equipment – just a room, some paper and a pen. This paper will detail the project, the response from the participants and lessons learned on using creative writing for mental wellbeing during the pandemic.