On December 15 the Independent on Sunday released figures pertaining to the NHS’s spending on fine art. Freedom of Information requests showed that 89 NHS trusts spent almost £2m on art between 2010 and now. The report also took umbrage with the salaries of arts co-ordinators, which can be up to £56,000 per annum.

A representative from Aintree University Hospitals Trust in Liverpool said that most of the art was commissioned “when there was more money in the system,” and that the trust “continues to support its provision for art in the face of tightening NHS finances.”

However, campaign group Keep Our NHS Public has criticised the trusts’ spending on art, stating that it is “time to get real and use the money more carefully,” and the general secretary of Unison David Prentis said: “when budgets are tight money should be spent on patient care.”

But according to a report published by the Arts Council, research conducted at Chelsea and Westminster Hospital has found “the length of stay of patients on a trauma and orthopaedic ward was one day shorter when they experienced visual arts and live music, and their need for pain relief was significantly less,” and that “visual arts and live music reduced levels of depression by a third in patients undergoing chemotherapy.”

The report highlights another study conducted at University of Sheffield, South Downs Health NHS Trust and Poole Hospital NHS Trust, which found that with exposure to art, “in the mental health unit verbal and physical abuse, and instances of patients injuring themselves, significantly reduced.”

This research shows definitively that art is an integral part of patient care and can not only contribute greatly to quality of life, but can also in some cases positively affect physical recovery.

Further, the total spend of £1,894,278 may seem high, but it is spread across 89 trusts nationally over a period of four years. This comes to only £5321 per trust per year, much of which would have been provided by private benefactors and charitable donations rather than the NHS care budget.

Among the works criticised by the Independent were two £8,500 steel giraffe sculptures, showing a mother with a baby giraffe, created by artist Oliver Stone. They were commissioned in 2010 for the children’s outpatients ward at Tameside Hospital in Greater Manchester. A Freedom of Information report filed at the time reveals that £5,000 of this £8,500 was “a very generous charitable donation” made to the trust.

Further, the Independent states that the annual pay of an arts co-ordinator is greater than a graduate nurse’s starting salary of £21,388. As arts co-ordinators are not at graduate entry level, the two are not comparable. Rather, taking into account their professional level and experience they are more akin to a Band 7-9 senior nurses in the NHS, whose salaries range from £30,764 to £98,453.

The employment of arts co-ordinators is crucial when considering that fine art is an important investment, and necessitates the eye of what NHS England described as “qualified professionals with a broad knowledge of the arts.”