Looking ahead
Maureen Hall, Chair
Attending one of our Music Jam sessions at the Edinburgh Royal Hospital was a wonderful experience for me. Our musician Charlie Gorman has been sharing live music at this large psychiatric hospital for many years and both he and the staff encourage those attending to perform for the audience.
One young man started singing 500 Miles by The Proclaimers. He began very hesitantly and avoided eye contact with the audience, but Charlie expertly encouraged him by playing along and gently guiding his singing.
By the end of the song, the man was engaging with the audience and getting everyone to clap along and join in with the chorus. The transformation in his demeanour was incredible and I could just see his confidence grow before our eyes.
Many of those who attended were younger long term psychiatric patients. As the close relative of a young man who has spent much of his adult years in and out of psychiatric care, I know how important it is to combat the isolation and lack of social confidence that come with such periods in hospital.
Live music strategic review
One key investment in the past year was to give staff time to work on a new live music strategic review, and I am delighted that one outcome of that work was a decision to roll out the Music Jam approach across the UK in the same way we have already done with ICU Hear® and Lullaby Hour. Another new approach, Room for Music, combines group live music in communal spaces with one-to-one music at people’s bedsides. This has been trialled successfully in a number of settings and will also be rolled out more widely.
Performance framework
To keep track of progress in achieving our goals, a new performance management framework was created last year for the whole organisation, consisting of milestones and key performance indicators (KPIs). These now form the focus of staff activity for the year and are reported against quarterly to the Board. This enables both staff and trustees to see progress in a balanced way across the whole organisation.
Looking to the year 26/27, we have agreed total of 43 milestones to support 34 KPIs across our five areas of focus. To show just one example from each area:
Impact
To roll out the Music Jam and
Room for Music approaches
to eight new settings
across England & Wales.
Voice
Conduct a survey of our audiences to gauge brand awareness and recognition.
Recovery
Development of new corporate partnership relationships to diversify our income.
EDIA
A consistent and inclusive musicians recruitment approach, increasing diversity and a positive impact on our travel emissions.
Organisational capability
All staff have objectives and development plans in place.
Our future strategy
In 2024, we extended our previous overall strategic goals for a further two years to 27/28, as we were confident they remained relevant. We can see that the financial investment of the last three years is already bearing results. We are, however, already thinking about 2028 and beyond. As new trustees join the Board, we will continue to welcome fresh insights and challenges around our work and purpose.
We now work to maintain a level of unrestricted reserves that is sufficient to mitigate financial risks, covering primary costs in the event of a shortfall or delay in income generation to ensure operational continuity. This means that we also need to have a balanced budget going forward, with all of our costs and music delivery supported by identified funding.
We are encouraged by the huge opportunity for future growth. We have increasing evidence of the positive impact of our work, and demand for our services is ever increasing. Live music generally is enjoying an increase in audiences, and we are optimistic that we can tap into that popularity to increase individual and corporate financial support, further diversifying our income. We are excited to work with all of our staff, musicians, volunteers and supporters to ensure that people in hospital and care can access and experience the joy of live music.