A number of large scale installations by cartoonist and artist Steven Appleby have been unveiled at the new Royal Brompton Centre for Sleep. The installations include a 3.5m-high glass screen in the building’s main reception, wall-drawings, a 30-piece corridor series, and new work for the bedrooms and clinic rooms. The images refer to the medicine, myths and mysteries of sleep, and reflect both the day and night time activities of the centre.
Westminster City Council has confirmed that it will cut all arts funding in the London borough by 2014/15.
It has been reported that Soho Theatre’s young people’s programmes, English National Ballet’s older people’s schemes and community and youth arts services from Paddington Arts, Dream Arts, Westminster Mind and Streetwise Opera will all be affected, along with around ten other arts initiatives.
The cuts were confirmed at a council meeting on 6 March.
Two new spaces that bring together creativity, play and healing have been created at the Royal London Hospital. This million pound project is the result of a RIBA competition to design an indoor play space and an outdoor garden for the new Royal London’s Children’s Hospital that harness the healing power of art and play. Formally known as The Ann Riches Healing Space, the activity space has been designed by architects Cottrell and Vermeulen and designer Morag Myerscough, who worked together to create a vibrant, oversized living room, filled with Alice in Wonderland-scale objects.
Organisations which support homeless people, the unemployed, victims of violence and the voluntary sector across the capital are being given funding by the London Councils’ grants programme. The money is being used to commission specific services rather than to fund organisations. These services are London-wide initiatives which would be difficult for individual boroughs or small groups of councils to provide on their own.
Following the successful pilot in November 2012, Social Enterprise ‘Tea Dance for Little People’ is working with St John’s Medical Centre in Lewisham to further develop its ‘Play While You Wait’ project. Funded by the Lewisham Central Ward Community First panel, it ran across the February half term and will continue to take place every Tuesday in February and March.
This year’s London Creativity and Wellbeing Week will take place from 17–22 June and we have just opened the Week for the submission of events. Click here to enter details now!
The Secretary of State for Health has published a notice of his decision in relation to South London Healthcare NHS Trust following a report produced by administrators.
The funding gap for providing adult social care in London will amount to £907m within five years, according to a new analysis by London Councils, supported by Ernst and Young.
A Case for Sustainable Funding for Adult Social Care sets out the severe financial challenges faced by London boroughs in their provision of adult social care. It highlights how councils are already taking action to narrow the funding gap by working more closely with the NHS, improving procurement and developing new ways to provide social care for older and disabled people.
Green Candle Dance Company – has been awarded an Innovation Bursary by the Tower Hamlets Clinical Commissioning Group to launch a new project aimed at Tower Hamlets’ older men: ‘Older Men Moving’ will, from January 2013, offer weekly dance and exercise sessions to three different men’s groups in the borough. These sessions will continue for a year and participants’ health and wellbeing will be measured at regular intervals, to see what effect movement sessions have on men’s fitness and wellbeing.
As part of a new partnership programme with Guy’s and St Thomas’ Charity and the London Boroughs of Southwark and Lambeth, the Design Council is running a six month research and engagement project with residents and service providers across both boroughs.
The aim of the work is to identify where the greatest opportunities lie for new or improved solutions, and to support effective innovation.
