(Examples of art at Fort William Health Centre)

Internal and external spaces in our projects are designed to display temporary and/or permanent exhibitions of artworks providing opportunities for local artists and contributing to the well-being of patients and staff.

An ambitious art project was undertaken at the recently opened Fort William Health Centre, appropriately completed in the Highland Year of Culture. The extensive range of artworks include stained glass, textiles, mobiles and children's artwork. Funding was received from a number of sources, including sustantial external grants.

Although the Centre has only been opened a few months the Practices are already reporting that patients are expressing their views on the positive therapeutic, calming influence the artwork and building ambience has on them. One of the paintings of Glencoe, which has a dark foreground and light in the uplands, provided a spontaneous metaphor which helped the discussion with a patient being treated for depression who found herself in the dark place struggling to get into the area of sunlight. The artwork is increasingly been seen as more than a luxury item but an essential part of any future NHS building!

A new website has been set up to provide a record of the Public Art Project at the Fort William Health Centre - www.adesignforhealth.co.uk. It is hoped that by looking at this specific project and the experiences of those involved it will provide an information source for similar projects.

Juliette Medder's sculpture at Kingskerswell Health Centre in South Devon, shown here, was commissioned following a competition judged by patients and staff. The six months' project, which is mounted on a piece of marble, has become an exterior landmark for this medical centre.

Aptly entitled 'Looking Forward', the exquisite metre high sculpture is of three entwined figures - mother, father and child - and it embraces what the practice believes 'healthcare is for'.

At the Skene Health Centre in Aberdeen, Edinburgh-based graphic designer Lucy Richards has produced a stylised version of the contours of the local Aberdeenshire hills, a theme that is repeated in various colours in different ways throughout the Centre.