Lancashire Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust has introduced an exciting and innovative new initiative to its hospitals in order to improve patient experience, with a unique launch event.
ICU-Hear is an initiative which offers live music to critically ill patients on the intensive care unit in hospital, provided by a charity group called Music in Hospitals and Care. The aim of this initiative is to provide a soothing, relaxing, calming and even uplifting atmosphere for patients who are critically ill in hospital. The music aims to make the critical care unit less clinical and provide a calming ambience for patients.
The music is played live rather than just being played on the radio or another platform to enable the musicians to alter their tone or pace accordingly in response to the behaviour of the patient.
The initiative was started by a former ICU patient at Manchester Royal Infirmary at a regional support group for former ICU patients. This has now been trialled in multiple hospitals nationwide.
Catherine Roberts, Consultant in Emergency Medicine and Critical Care at Lancashire Teaching Hospitals, has introduced this concept onto the Intensive Care Unit at Royal Preston Hospital. This is the first of its kind in Lancashire, and was officially launched at an event which took place yesterday.
Holly Marland played the kora (African harp) for patients as part of the launch event, with great responses from everyone on the unit. The session was funded by the Governor Patient Experience Charitable Fund.
Catherine said: “ICU Hear has only been launched in a couple of hospitals so far, and we are excited to be the first in Lancashire to be offering this fantastic service. Being in our Intensive Care Unit can be an extremely scary, daunting and unnerving experience, and we always aim to do anything that we can to try to help our patients to feel more comfortable.”
“It has been proven that music can help people to sleep better and also to reduce pain so we hope that this service will benefit our patients and improve their experiences of being in hospital.”