Award winning poet to be Writer in Residence at Trafford General Hospital to celebrate the NHS’s 75th anniversary

NHS England is delighted that a new project, ‘Untold Stories of the NHS’ led by Manchester Metropolitan University and funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC), will support health workers to tell their NHS stories in celebration of the 75th anniversary of the NHS this year. ‘Untold Stories of the NHS’, aims to celebrate the contribution to care of current and former NHS workers, reflecting on their working lives within the organisation and telling their stories through creative writing. Lecturer in Creative Writing at Manchester Metropolitan University, Dr Kim Moore will be placed as a Writer in Residence at Trafford General Hospital, the first NHS hospital to be opened in 1948 by then Minister of Health Aneurin ‘Nye’ Bevan.

During the residency, Dr Moore will be based at Bevan’s Restaurant, the staff canteen at Trafford General Hospital, one day a week until April 2023. Each week Dr Moore will listen to stories from NHS staff and run a series of creative writing workshops to help inspire staff to pen their own stories.

Dr Moore will produce an original piece of creative work responding to her residency at Trafford General Hospital which will be released during the week of the NHS’s 75th anniversary on 5 July 2023.

Windrush NHS Stories, a parallel strand of the Untold Stories project, will see Manchester City of Literature Community Champion Jackie Bailey supporting members of African-Caribbean communities to tell their stories of working lives in the NHS to mark the 75th anniversary this year of the arrival of HMT Empire Windrush in Britain.

The project will culminate in an exhibition and published anthology of creative writing produced by NHS staff, curated by Dr Moore. The exhibition will begin with a launch event during the week of the anniversary at the Manchester Poetry Library and will run until September 2023. For more information, please see the Manchester Metropolitan University website.