Fifty years of play in healthcare: ‘Our role is so much better known now’

This week (13–18 October) marks Play in Healthcare Week, celebrating 30 years of the awareness campaign and 50 years of play being used to support children and young people in hospital settings.

To mark the occasion, Sheila Caldicott, one of Oxford University Hospitals' Senior Health Play Specialists, reflects on her 43-year career in play services and the evolution of the profession. Sheila has worked at OUH since October 1982 and was part of the very first Play in Healthcare Week event in 1995. She told us:

I have been fortunate enough to be in a job that I absolutely love for the past 43 years.

I was involved in the first Play in Healthcare Week event that we put on in 1995 and it was very different to the one we will be hosting this year.

When I started working for OUH there were just two Play Specialists and, after being a nursery nurse on the ward for a few years, I transferred to be the play specialist for the then cardiac/respiratory ward. I shared a make shift play room with a colleague who covered the oncology ward, on a floor of that was really meant to be an adult area.

We had one free standing metal cupboard that had all our precious supplies in and we relied on the kind donations from families and a local Brownie group, which my mum ran, to keep us topped up with the much needed pens, pencils, puzzles and games.

Over the years things have changed – but at the heart of our role we remain the advocate for the child in a scary, uncertain place, helping to make their hospital experience the best it can be.

For our first Play in Hospital Week, in 1995, we were a team of five…but not much was known about us.

How things have changed. We are now a recognised profession with our own professional body. We have to be registered to be able to work, and that involves completion of the Health Play Specialist qualification.

We now have a lovely Children’s Hospital on the John Radcliffe site, and each area has its own playroom with lots of cupboards and supplies, play stations, tablets and toys in abundance, with access to an outside space. We are a team of 22 and cover most areas that children attend.

We are still supported by the kind donations of our families and also by Oxford Hospitals Charity, which is amazing at helping us with the purchases of larger play equipment.

Our role is so much better known now, and I’m proud that the service we offer makes a difference to our patients, their families and their hospital experience, and I feel very privileged that I have been able to be a part of this wonderful profession for pretty much the whole of my working life.

Jo Pinney, Health Play Specialist Team Manager, said: "The nature of our work has evolved over the last 50 years, and Sheila has been involved in all of this. Thank you to her, and the incredible Play team, for the excellent care they provide to our young patients and their families."

The OUH Play team, made up of 22 members including senior play specialists, play specialists, and assistants, supports children across the Horton General Hospital, the Nuffield Orthopaedic Centre, and the John Radcliffe Hospital.

They use therapeutic play to help young patients – up to the age of 18 – understand and cope with their hospital experience, seeing around 100 children daily.