The front of Forth Valley Royal Hospital has been turned into a giant cinema screen to spread health messages covering topics from cancer screening to organ donation and to showcase artwork produced by local patients, school pupils and staff.

Details are being projected onto what is known as the ‘Wall of Wellbeing’ – a space measuring almost 40 by 30 feet on an exterior wall of the hospital, and a series of short films will be shown there regularly throughout the winter period.

The films, which are on a continuous loop and include stills and video clips, show winter health information and advice and feature young people from local schools discussing a wide range of health issues. These include pupils from Wallace High School and Alva Academy along with photographs taken by higher photography students from Larbert High School. In addition, there are short video clips of interviews with some the 2015 NHS Forth Valley Staff Award winners.

The move follows a successful test run to promote last year’s World Stroke Day which involved projecting images from the FAST campaign – a national initiative to raise awareness of the signs and symptoms of a stroke – onto the exterior wall of the hospital. In 2014, ‘One Hundred Blinks’, a film created during artist Lindsay Perth’s residency with NHS Forth Valley, was also projected onto the wall outside the entrance to Forth Valley Royal Hospital. Staff and visitors were able to watch 100 anonymous faces progressing through the ages from a newborn baby to the blink of a 100 year old.

Announcing the decision to project a new range of films, NHS Forth Valley’s Charitable Arts and Wellbeing Coordinator Babs McCool said: “One Hundred Blinks was something of a test piece for NHS Forth Valley. This wall space has tremendous potential for all kinds of digital projects and messages. It’s great that we are able to deliver health information in a novel way to the local staff, visitors and patients. It really is the start of something exciting.”

The initiative is a partnership between NHS Forth Valley’s Arts and Wellbeing Programme, Health Promotion Team and Artlink Central.

Pamela Vannan, NHS Forth Valley Senior Health Promotion Officer, said: “This new initiative gives us the opportunity to promote a wide range of health messages in an interesting and eye-catching way as well as providing a platform to share some of the amazing artwork produced by local artists, school pupils and service users.”

The projections will run from mid Jan until mid March 2016. If successful, there are plan to project similar films next winter to help showcase a wide range of health and art initiatives.

Issued by NHS Forth Valley’s Communications Department – 01786 457264.