Dr Jenny Elliott delivers a passionate and engaging lecture about the development of creative work forces in the hospitals, day care, education and hospices of Northern Ireland.

Dr Elliott describes a wide range of ways in which the arts have been incorporated for enhanced outcomes, including an intensive arts course (complete with arts-based evaluation) offered to medical students at Queen’s University, Belfast.

“Self-expression is an integral part of how we care for each other – creativity in the caring workforce enhances the experience of those in care,” Dr Elliott says.

“The arts can be used to advocate, to transform and inform policy in terms of better health and better education and better community? They can be used very powerfully within the health care context to advocate for older people, for people with disabilities: these are the voices of the community, there’s no denying it, there’s no turning away from it.”