Our story
Paintings in Hospitals is the UK’s leading creative health charity but our beginnings were much smaller…
In 1959, in a busy hospital corridor, Sheridan Russell fixed an artwork to the wall. Sheridan was Britain’s first male almoner. The almoners were the pioneers of what we now call Social Work. Sheridan worked at the National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery, he passionately believed in the healing potential of artists creative endeavours and had started displaying artworks in waiting rooms and wards. He noticed people’s reactions to these new artworks and began to see just how important art could be to our health and wellbeing.
With help from the Nuffield Foundation, Sheridan set out to create a special art collection. This would become the Paintings in Hospitals collection: the first and only national collection of art to support people’s physical and mental health.
Our founder Sheridan Russell, 1900-1991
Through the years, Sheridan inspired more people to see the importance of art in healthcare. Sir Dennis Proctor (former Chair of Tate), Roger de Grey (former President of the Royal Academy of Arts) and many more Patrons, trustees and supporters joined the Paintings in Hospitals mission. Together, they helped our charity’s impact grow.
Sheridan believed that everyone should be able to experience the health benefits of art, regardless of situation or location. So, in the 1980s, we began to develop a regional network, enabling care sites outside of London to access our services and borrow our art. In 1991, we provided seed funding for Paintings in Hospitals Scotland, which has since become Art in Healthcare.
The National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery circa 1960. The birthplace of Paintings in Hospitals.
Today, Paintings in Hospitals works across England, Wales and Northern Ireland. We care for over 3,000 artworks in our collection, many by world-famous artists. We use our collection to inspire art walks, artist projects and creative activities. And we work side-by-side with patients and care staff to help create care spaces that are encouraging, enriching and empowering.
We hope Sheridan would be proud.
Can you help us to help everyone in need benefit from the life-enriching power of art?
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 – THE NEXT CHAPTER
Paintings in Hospitals (PiH) joined with CW+ in July 2025, bringing together two organisations with long histories of improving health and wellbeing through art. Since the merger, we have been reviewing the PiH collection and shaping plans for its future within a new national context, to ensure it continues to benefit patients, staff and communities for many years to come.
Over the past year we have carried out a detailed review of the collection, its reach and its potential to support the health priorities facing communities today. This work has informed a new strategy, endorsed and supported by NHS England and the Department for Culture, Media & Sport (DCMS), which outlines the development of a broader national programme called NHS Arts.
For the first phase we will be partnering with the Government Art Collection (GAC) as part of its Art Works Everywhere programme. Through this partnership, more than 1,000 artworks from the PiH and GAC collections will be loaned free of charge to NHS hospitals for five years, offering immediate benefits to care environments and providing a strong national platform for the role of art in health.
Alongside the development of NHS Arts, we have maintained PiH’s loans programme, and will continue to do so. There are currently 1,290 works in 72 hospitals, bringing great art to patients, families and those caring for them, and ensuring that PiH’s important legacy continues.
Looking ahead, NHS Arts aims to build a consistent creative health infrastructure across England, embedding high-quality artworks and community-led creative activity in hospitals and healthcare settings. Initial activity will focus on areas with limited access to arts provision, or where stronger community-health relationships have the potential to make the greatest difference.
Participating arts, cultural and community organisations will also benefit from valuable national exposure through their involvement in NHS Arts and the wider creative health ecosystem, with opportunities to contribute to creative programming, community engagement and codesigned activity linked to local health priorities.
The ambition is for NHS Arts to launch nationally in 2028, coinciding with the 80th anniversary of the NHS. This will mark the beginning of a long-term, nationally consistent approach to integrating creativity into everyday healthcare.
We remain committed to the founding principles of Paintings in Hospitals – ensuring that artworks are accessible, meaningful and used for public benefit – while embracing a new framework that will allow art and creativity to reach more people, more consistently, across the country.
Further updates will be shared as the programme develops. If you would like to get in touch, please email arts@cwplus.org.uk.
1 July 2026
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.
Our shop
Browse our collection of items by some of the UK's leading artists and designers here on our website or visit the Paintings in Hospitals online Shop.