In this series, our director Ben chats with leaders in the culture and care sectors to discover more about their inspiration, work, and the future of arts in health. This week: Professor Martin Green.

Who are you, what do you do, and why do you do it?

I am Martin Green, and I am Chief Executive of Care England, which is the largest representative body for care providers. Our members run thousands of care services that support, older people, people with learning disabilities, people with physical disabilities and people with mental health issues. The majority of our services are residential.

With an increasing number of issues facing the NHS and wider care system, what do you think are the biggest challenges independent care sites face over the rest of the NHS Five Year Forward View?

One of the biggest challenges faced by care providers is how to work more effectively with the NHS, so that we deliver a seamless service to the citizens who use both health and social care. There is a lot of talk in the system about integration but sadly the focus is on the organisations and not the people who use the services. We will know we have got integration right because it will be when the structures and organisations involved in health and social care are invisible to service users, and they experience a seamless service.

“The joy and pleasure that people get from arts and culture does not diminish as we get older, in fact, it often becomes even more important to us when illness or frailty changes our lives.”

At Care England you promote organisations providing arts for health and wellbeing. Despite our name, more and more of our partner sites are actually small care sites. What difference do you think organisations like Paintings in Hospitals make to the quality of care and those experiencing it?

One of the big priorities for Care England is to support services that enable people to have a good life. The arts and culture are as important to people as they always were, but as we get frailer the opportunities to engage with the arts tends to diminish and this has an impact on our quality of life and our wellbeing.

What we need to see is more engagement with arts and culture in care homes, and the environment in which care is delivered can be very important in ensuring people's wellbeing. The joy and pleasure that people get from arts and culture does not diminish as we get older, in fact, it often becomes even more important to us when illness or frailty changes our lives.

Paintings in Hospitals has some very exciting projects in the pipeline, working up to our 60th Anniversary in 2019. What’s next for Care England?

Care England holds a conference every year in November to debate the big issues for the care sector. This year we are naming the conference Shaping Tomorrow and will be looking at a range of innovations that can improve people's lives.

Martin and Ben are both on Twitter: @ProfMartinGreen, @HighStreetBen