1 minute read
Case study – Leonard’s Cars
2,000
2,000 COPIES OF LEONARD’S CARS HAVE BEEN DISTRIBUTED TO PATIENTS AND STAFF
Advertisement
3,000
OVER 3,000 CREATIVE SESSIONS DELIVERED SINCE 2008 The inspirational story behind this collection of pictures has been shared by our volunteers to encourage patients to discover their own creativity and to think about what brings them joy.
Danny Branch
UCLH volunteering service
Leonard’s Cars CASE STUDY
Creative about improving patient experience
Despite advances in cancer care, multiple trips and long hospital stays are sometimes unavoidable. We fund the work of creative specialist Dr Lizzie Burns, who brings colour and creativity to help patients pass the time and ‘bust the boredom’ of staying in a hospital bed.
It is through Lizzie that the work of a patient who was a long-term inpatient with cancer, Leonard, is being made into something for others in the same situation, to
enjoy. Lizzie explains: “Leonard was in hospital for five months during 2012. He got the idea of drawing because he felt so bored after a week by himself in a sideroom. He was drawing around eight pictures a day amounting to over 1,000 drawings of vehicles which he individually named. Somehow Leonard managed to completely focus on something he cared about and that brought him joy, and so he spread that positive attitude.”
Leonard’s drawings have been produced as an adult colouring book so that patients have the opportunity to use their creativity to pass the time, should they so
wish. Copies of the book, which has a foreword by Philippa Perry, psychotherapist and author, will be distributed Trust-wide by volunteers. An exhibition of Leonard’s Cars formed part of the 10 year anniversary celebrations of the University College Hospital Macmillan Cancer Centre in April 2022. Before he died, Leonard said that “drawing made me feel fantastic”. He’d enjoyed gardening but described this as even better, going from ‘green fingers’ to ‘felt-tip fingers’.
Watch a film about Leonard’s Cars
