A huge congratulations to all 28 Brighton and Sussex Medical School students who joined us for our Music and the Future Doctor elective module this year.

Together, we’ve explored the unique role music can play in transforming healthcare environments and reflected on the skills our hospital musicians use every day to build trust and rapport with people of all ages. We’ve also had plenty of fun making music together and thinking about how these skills can be applied in healthcare settings.

As well as this, student Charlotte has been exploring new ways to capture the impact of our children’s and families’ music sessions at The Royal Alexandra Children’s Hospital, with some really positive outcomes. Two more students are carrying out music and health literature reviews, helping us deepen our understanding of the growing evidence base behind our work. We’ll be shouting out more about this soon!

We’re proud to deliver this established elective in partnership with Brighton and Sussex Medical School. Supporting future doctors to think creatively and see the person, not the patient, is a valuable part of what we do.

We can’t wait to do it all again next year!

We’re looking for musicians to join Live at The Alex – our series of gentle, live performances at the Royal Alexandra Children’s Hospital in Brighton.

Delivered in partnership with Rockinghorse Children’s Hospital, this programme brings gentle music into the hospital atrium, creating a calm and welcoming environment for children, families, staff and visitors.

About the opportunity

We’re inviting solo artists and duos to perform and share their music in a way that supports wellbeing. Your music doesn’t need to be written for children. We’re looking for artists who can offer gentle, soothing sounds to help everyone in the hospital find a moment of calm amid the busy environment.

What to expect

• When? Weekdays, between 1.30pm and 5pm (timing is flexible)
• Duration? 1 hour 15 minutes
• Fee? £150 per performer (+ travel covered if needed)

You’ll be fully supported by our team on the day. We’ll help you settle in, set up and feel at ease in the space.

Check out our Instagram to see some of the performances so far!

We welcome applications from disabled musicians and can support you with access requirements. We are open to having conversations on how best to support you.

We’d love to hear from you. Drop us a line at [email protected] to find out more or apply.

Following a recent fundraising review, we’re looking for someone to work with us to build a sustainable stream of unrestricted income through individual giving and community fundraising. This short consultancy will help strengthen our fundraising portfolio and support the future growth of our work.

About the role

Contract: Freelance / consultancy
Timeframe: April – October 2026. Around 12–14 days total (exact number to be agreed).
Fee: Competitive day rate depending on experience
Reporting to: CEO, Jo White

The consultant will help us design and implement a new Individual Giving Programme. The role is specifically focused on developing a sustainable stream of unrestricted income through targeted individual giving and community fundraising, which is an area identified as having growth potential.

Download the Fundraising Consultancy Terms of Reference for full details about the role.

How to apply

Please send an expression of interest by 10 April 2026 to Jo White, CEO at [email protected]

Please include the following:

• Your CV, including track record and relevant experience.
• An outline of your work plan to achieve the deliverables set out in these Terms of Reference, including the number of days required and your fee per day.

At the end of our 2023–25 strategy period, we’re taking time to reflect on what we’ve achieved, what we’ve learnt and where we go next.

Enabling access to participatory music making isn’t an add-on or “nice thing to have”, but an essential activity that we have woven into the routines of healthcare settings. Connection and self-expression matter, especially in places where people can feel isolated or overwhelmed.

Over the last three years, demand for this work has continued to rise, and we’re proud to say we have stayed closely aligned to our core mission: bringing participatory music right to the heart of healthcare.

• We delivered 878 sessions, reaching over 5500 people.
• We supported 9 apprentice musicians.
• Our work expanded into intensive care and stroke rehabilitation settings
• Our partnership with Brighton and Sussex Medical School delivered multiple elective modules reaching 40 medical students each year.
• 2 new trustees were recruited to strengthen governance and organisational leadership.
• A collective with partner organisations enabled regular training, networking and creative development for all our musicians.
• We started a series of public space performances, ‘Live at the Alex’, in partnership with Rockinghorse Children’s Hospital, reaching staff, families and visitors with soothing music and giving opportunities to emerging musicians.

Our core mission

We maintained our focus on bedside and group music-making with our NHS partners across Sussex and Surrey. We co-designed programmes that respond to the real needs of babies, children, young people and older adults, plus their families and staff who care for them. Hospitals are communities too and we work with the whole ecosystem. Pressures within the health system have increased, but music remains a powerful way to help people feel seen as individuals and not just their diagnosis.

Our weekly music sessions took place in a variety of settings, including:

• Children’s hospitals and neonatal units
• Elderly care and dementia wards
• Psychiatric wards for young people and people with dementia
• Intensive Treatment Units
• Stroke Rehabilitation Centres

Expanding our practice

One of the most exciting developments during this period was the expansion of our programme into new clinical settings.

In 2023, we began working with trauma patients and staff in Intensive Treatment Units (ITU). This opened up new learning for us as an organisation and for our musicians. Using simple technology to create loops, drones and gentle backing tracks, our musicians developed experimental sonic landscapes to radically alter the experience of being in an Intensive Care Unit.

We encountered a patient who shared a story of connection with us. She shared how the music sessions affected her deeply while in an induced coma, giving a sense of calm amidst the stress

Working closely with Speech and Language Therapists at the Sussex Rehabilitation Centre has also been a rewarding development. As a team, we’ve gained insight and expertise into the role music plays in post-stroke recovery.

Supporting the next generation of healthcare professionals

Our partnership with Brighton and Sussex Medical School (BSMS) continues to be a key part of our work. Over the past three years, we delivered multiple “Music and the Future Doctor” 8-week elective modules for medical students and guest lectured on the Master’s in Paediatrics, sharing learning, grounded in our experience and Creative Health research on the role music plays in patient wellbeing.

We also began a research partnership with BSMS to help us capture the impact of our work with children and families at The Royal Alexandra Children’s Hospital in Brighton. We are proud of the role we play in developing our future doctors and helping them to reflect not just on how music can impact our mental health but how they can learn from the arts to build trust and rapport with patients and families.

Investing in future Music for Health practitioners

Our talented musicians make Wishing Well the charity that it is! Creating opportunities for emerging music for health practitioners has and will continue to be a central goal for us. During this strategy period, we hosted nine musicians through our apprentice programme. These apprentices came to us through diverse recruitment pathways, bringing new voices, experiences and ways of working into our organisation.

Our professional development collective with fellow Brighton community music organisation, New Note Orchestra and Soundcastle has flourished. By pooling resources, we’ve been able to bring in expert trainers, and create space for networking, practice development and fun!

Equity, Diversity and Inclusion

Over the past three years, we’ve taken meaningful steps forward in our EDI journey; we have recruited a trustee with EDI expertise, completed a year-long “EDI in the arts” training programme with Spotlight Inclusion, delivered unconscious bias training across our CPD collective and reviewed patient data at partner hospitals to better understand who we are reaching. We successfully widened recruitment to our apprentice programme in order to support musicians who have faced barriers to education and training.

Looking ahead

As we reflect on this strategy period, we feel proud of our team, partners and everyone who has made music with us!

This work is only possible thanks to the support of funders, donors and collaborators who believe in the power of music to support wellbeing. Your investment continuously helps us turn clinical places into cultural spaces, where participants can express themselves, staff feel supported and families feel connected. We’re excited to keep building, learning and making music together!

We are seeking two new trustees to help us create our next 3-year strategy, oversee governance and help diversify our income streams to sustain our work into the future.

We are looking for a Treasurer Trustee and a Fundraising Trustee. This is an opportunity to bring your expertise into a creative context to support a small music charity making a big impact in healthcare.

We meet in person four times a year in Brighton; extra time in between meetings is required and is agreed with the CEO as appropriate. We prefer to meet in person, but some meetings can be held online or in a blended format.

We are committed to building a diverse and inclusive board. We particularly encourage applications from

• people with ethnically and culturally diverse backgrounds.
• people with disabilities.
• people with lived experience of caring for someone living with dementia or a child with health or mental health challenges.

You don’t need previous trustee experience – enthusiasm, reliability and a willingness to learn are just as valuable. Our board welcomes applicants of all backgrounds, regardless of race, religion, gender, age, sexual orientation or disability.

Being a Trustee offers me personal growth, expansion and new learning to my leadership experience, and, most importantly, the satisfaction of helping people reconnect with joy, identity, and community through music. It is a privilege to bring my experiences to Wishing Well Music for Health as a Trustee

Denise Cook, Trustee.

Download and read our Trustees Opportunity Job Pack for more information.

This year, Wishing Well Music for Health brought live, interactive music into healthcare across Sussex and Surrey, reaching people at some of the most challenging moments of their lives.

Across 12 healthcare settings, we delivered 304 participatory music-making sessions, creating space for connection, expression and joy in places that can otherwise feel overwhelming. In total, 2,310 people took part, our highest ever number of participants.

That includes 563 babies, children and young people, 1,747 older people, and 880 family members who shared those moments alongside loved ones.

One daughter visiting her mother shared:

We have had the worst news today and I was dreading our visit. But you made a tough moment so much easier with your music. You are angels for doing this.

Our work supports people of all ages to express themselves and feel less alone. This year, our sessions helped create:

• Opportunities for people to express themselves
• Increased joy
• Increased motivation and activity, guarding against boredom and PJ Paralysis
• Increased non-clinical connection

In acute psychiatric care for people living with dementia, an Occupational Therapist said:

You cannot underestimate the value of what you do. The only time “Len” will come out of his room is when you are running the music group. The only time “Jean” sits still and relaxes is when she sings with you. We see a completely different side to people – the stress just seems to melt away. They are at peace.

We continued to invest in the future of creative health. This year, we supported 4 apprentices, delivering over 100 hours of learning for early-career music facilitators, and reached 27 NHS staff and medical students through training.

For many people, music is more than a moment of enjoyment. It can be a turning point. As one young person told us:

Prior to my illness, I was a keen musician….Luckily, I am now back to performing gigs and am applying for music college next year. None of this would have been possible without that one song. Having Wishing Well play for me in the hospital caused a huge impact on my recovery and reminded me of my passion for music. It honestly saved me.

Every session we deliver is grounded in partnership, care and a belief in seeing the person, not the patient. We want to say a huge thank you to the continued support from donors, partners and funders:

• Arts Council England
• The National Foundation for Youth Music
• Chalk Cliff Trust
• The Garfield Weston Foundation
• Ernest Klienwort Foundation
• The Early Birth Association
• SASH Charity
• My University Hospital Sussex Charity
• Surrey Community Foundation
• Rockinghorse Children’s Charity