Research summary

  • January to September 2023

In the 75th anniversary year of the NHS, the ‘Untold Stories of the NHS’ programme, led by Manchester Metropolitan University in partnership with Manchester University NHS Foundation Trust (MFT), Lime Arts at MFT, Health Education England and Manchester UNESCO City of Literature, will place a Writer-in-Residence at Trafford General Hospital in Manchester, the first NHS hospital to be opened. At a time of landmark celebration and of unprecedented challenge for the NHS, the project will celebrate the contribution of workers in a range of roles and from diverse backgrounds to the delivery of care and to the NHS story.

Our Writer in Residence, prize-winning poet Kim Moore, will be advised on the project by researchers and professionals experienced in using creative arts to support staff wellbeing in health and social care contexts. She will support staff at the hospital to tell their NHS stories and to produce their own creative work, curate those responses to the project and produce her own creative piece exploring themes essential to the project. She will lead on the dissemination of the project outputs to public audiences within and beyond the NHS.

The project will culminate in a launch event at Manchester Met to mark the NHS anniversary in July, a display at Trafford General, and an exhibition in the Manchester Poetry Library running over the Summer.

Untold Stories of the NHS is funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC)