The English National Opera launches ENO Breathe with Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust

The English National Opera launches ENO Breathe with Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust

There is a huge focus on finding a vaccine and managing the spread of the pandemic, but we do not hear a great deal about the support structures in place for those recovering from Covid-19.

MDG sponsors and supports a number of charities and organisations each year, The English National Opera (ENO) being one of them. In a partnership first of its kind between a leadings arts organisation and an NHS Trust, the ENO has partnered with Imperial College Health Trust to develop a social prescribing intervention that will provide crucial support to people recovering from Covid-19.

Working closely with Imperial College Healthcare, the ENO have devised and developed an integrated six week pilot programme of singing, breathing and wellbeing aimed at supporting and enhancing the recovery of Covid-19 survivors. Led by ENO Baylis, the ENO’s learning and participation programme, this holistic online programme brings together medical and musical expertise and will provide novel ways to support and empower those recovering from Covid-19, offering tools for self-management, particularly with regards to posture, breath and anxiety.

Initially being trialled across London, the ENO and Imperial College Healthcare plan to expand this programme nationwide. It continues the ENO’s ongoing support of the NHS and in particular, Imperial College Healthcare, having made scrubs for their respiratory team during the pandemic.

Our Chairman Dr Harry Brunjes, and Chair of the ENO, said: “Social prescribing is an active partnership between the community and clinicians. As a medic myself, I am thrilled ENO is to be working with Imperial College Healthcare in this shared initiative which both promotes and underwrites ENO’s commitment to social prescribing. I am also very grateful to the input from our new board member, Professor Ajit Lalvani, Professor of Medicine at Imperial College and protagonist of social prescribing, whose expertise we admire. ENO Breathe will be the first project that is planned as part of ENO’s mission to ensure that the skills and expertise of all those at the London Coliseum can provide genuine and sustainable benefit to the community long term.”