Polly, creative producer for CUH Arts, tells us her CUH story.
Q: Tell us about your job.
Within the CUH Arts team I lead the staff-facing programme of creative projects including facilitating online and in-person workshops often with local artists, delivering creative resources to staff rest areas, supporting a range of projects from our amazing creative community, and creating content for our portal pages and social media. These are important opportunities for staff to relax, distract, interact and begin to process all that has been happening in recent months.
Q: What do you like most about your job?
Working with people, and finding out how different people use arts in their spare time for relaxation and distraction from the world.
Every day is different and I am constantly surprised by the breadth and quality of creative projects and hobbies our staff engage in – get in touch if you have something to share!
Q: Tell us a bit about your CUH journey.
I first joined CUH in January 2006 as a trainee assistant practitioner in diagnostic radiography – it was a rare opportunity to take on a paid role alongside distance-learning undergraduate training which was fully funded by the Trust, similar to the current apprenticeship roles. I spent eight years in plain film x-ray and DXA scanning before taking some time out to support my family through a difficult time.
When I came back to CUH I was offered a new part-time role in metabolic bone research, and was able to divide my working week between clinical and research practice – one of the benefits of working on the Cambridge Biomedical Campus!
I have always used the arts to support my own wellbeing, and also painted a calming picture for one of our x-ray rooms as a distraction for anxious patients. In 2017 I left the Trust to study Arts for Health and Wellbeing, learning evidence-based strategies to facilitate expressive arts to encourage self-expression, communication and wellbeing.
Graduating into the pandemic in Summer 2020, I stepped back in via the brilliant staff bank to support DXA scanning which brought home to me the full impact of the pandemic on our NHS workforce.
Since then it’s been a privilege to be able to develop our staff-facing creative wellbeing programme and to find creative ways to work with occupational health and workforce to enhance staff support more broadly at CUH.
Q: How are you involved in our staff networks?
My Mental Health First Aider training was my first step into CUH staff networks, getting involved in Time to Change and singing at their first Open Mind night in 2016.
Attending Transgender Awareness training with staff from across the hospital helped me to feel more comfortable being open about my bisexuality in the workplace, though I had never felt the need to hide it, and 2016 I represented CUH at the Unison National LGBT+ conference.
My current role includes liaising with staff networks and I am proud to be judging the LGBT+ network’s Pride themed arts and crafts contest this month!
Q: How has CUH supported you to be your authentic self?
Through my years in diagnostic radiography I was well supported by a close group of colleagues who became good friends. On mentioning that I had a female partner for the first time to colleagues who had assumed that I was heterosexual, they suggested throwing me a ‘coming out’ party – but it wasn’t necessary as I was already out and living my life the way I wanted to.
It has always been reassuring to know there are staff networks to look to for support if needed. I feel incredibly grateful to CUH for supporting every step of my journey; from inviting me to hang my painting on the wall all those years ago, to allowing me to apply my arts in health training to support the workforce I have been part of for so long.
I am very proud to be part of CUH and hope to continue to weave together the many strands of our diverse community so that we can feel empowered to be our true and authentic selves. Let’s stand #Together for Pride in the NHS.
For more information on Pride in the NHS Week, visit events.england.nhs.uk (opens in a new tab)