Wellcome uses cookies.

Read our policy
Skip to main content
155 results
  • Book extract
  • Book extract

The give and take of caring

| Kate MosseSteven Pocock

Kate Mosse argues that how we define ‘care’ matters, and explores the reciprocity of caring and being cared for.

  • Article
  • Article

Providing care across languages

| Niyoshi ShahRanganath Krishnamani

When medics are taught in English but their patients speak other languages, effective communication becomes fraught. Niyoshi Shah explores the linguistic gaps between patient and doctor.

  • Article
  • Article

Care, creativity and a connected world

| Christine Ro

Find out about the challenges Wellcome Collection has faced during the last very demanding year.

  • Article
  • Article

Caring for our Disabled daughter in lockdown

| Jane HolmesCarrie Ravenscroft

Jane Holmes talks about the challenges of caring for her Disabled daughter while working and trying to stay safe during the pandemic.

  • Article
  • Article

The poetic language of health

| James MorlandPippa Dyrlaga

When his doctors could only offer phone consultations, James Morland turned to poetry to make sense of the medical terms describing his symptoms and test results.

  • Article
  • Article

Battling the heteronormativity of sexual health

| Mary WMaïa WalcottBlack Ballad

As a queer, Black women, Mary W is sick of the never-ending hetero-cycle of clinic appointments, where her needs and sexuality are always a surprise to the doctor. She calls for a revolution.

  • Article
  • Article

The birth of Britain's National Health Service

| Cal Flyn

Starkly unequal access to healthcare gave rise to Nye Bevan’s creation of a truly national health service.

  • Article
  • Article

Picturing mental health

| Lalita KaplishSolomon Szekir-Papasavva

Ron Hampshire created artworks while resident at Netherne psychiatric hospital. What can we learn from them?

  • Article
  • Article

Guerrilla public health

| Harry Shapiro

From safe-use guides to needle exchange schemes, Harry Shapiro reflects on 40 years of drug harm reduction in the UK.

  • Article
  • Article

Between sickness and health

| Will ReesNaki Narh

In early 2020, the subject Will Rees was studying – imaginary illnesses – took on a new relevance as everyone anxiously scanned themselves for Covid symptoms each day. But this kind of self-scrutiny is nothing new, as he reveals.

  • Article
  • Article

Religion and mental health

| Jamila PereiraMaïa WalcottBlack Ballad

At a time of extreme distress, Jamila Pereira found that the faith she had relied on was failing her. Here she describes how she found other ways to begin healing and finding happiness.

  • Article
  • Article

Two health centres, two ideologies

| Emily Sargent

Two futuristic, light-filled buildings aimed to bring forward-looking healthcare to city dwellers. But the principles behind each were very different.

  • Article
  • Article

Designing better mental health wards

| Emily Reynolds

Bringing colour and natural light to tired, grubby mental health wards has a measurably positive effect on patients. A few groundbreaking projects are showing the way.

  • Interview
  • Interview

Refugee health on a pound a day

| Vanesha Kirita SinghBenjamin Gilbert

Two refugees living a hand-to-mouth existence in the UK explain how trauma has affected their health, and how a little kindness is bringing them hope.

  • Article
  • Article

How the mental health system fails Black people

| Rianna WalcottCamilla Greenwell

Accessing mental healthcare as a Black woman can be a challenging experience. Rianna Walcott shares her story, alongside those of three other women, to reveal the barriers she faced.

  • Article
  • Article

Soil health and dairy farming in the UK

| Angela HuiCat O’Neil

Although healthy soil means more nutritious dairy products, modern intensive farming methods pollute and degrade the environment. However, a regenerative agriculture movement is kicking back against mainstream industrial farming.

  • Article
  • Article

Six personal health zines that might change your life

| Loesja VigourNicola Cook

Personal zines put health conditions back in the hands of the people who experience them. Here are six that Wellcome Collection staff love.

  • Article
  • Article

The food diary and the power of unhealth

| Virginia HartleyAnna Keville Joyce

Food diaries might appear to present a strictly factual record of dietary choices, but what they don’t include is the more revealing story, as Virginia Hartley suggests.

  • Article
  • Article

Love, longing and tea from the polski sklep

| Kasia TomasiewiczAnna Keville Joyce

For people of Polish origin in the UK, herbal tea is closely tied to health and shared history. Kasia Tomasiewicz explores her changing relationship to these tea-related cultural habits.

  • Article
  • Article

What Black women do when the NHS fails them

| Sabrina-Maria AndersonMaïa WalcottBlack Ballad

Sabrina-Maria Anderson explores misogynoir – hatred of Black women – within the NHS, and how women like her are consequently turning to other sources of medical support.

  • Article
  • Article

The healing power of the physic garden

| Iona Glen

Having experienced the healing power of plants and gardens, Iona Glen goes in search of present-day “physic gardens” and their origins in history.

  • Article
  • Article

We need less ‘sickle cell warriors’ and more allies

| Cheryl TelferMaïa WalcottBlack Ballad

Rejecting the epithet “warrior”, Cheryl Telfer describes the pervasive effect sickle cell disease has on her life, and calls for more people to donate blood to help sicklers.

  • Photo story
  • Photo story

Voices of the NHS

| Thomas S G FarnettiBenjamin Gilbert

In the midst of the coronavirus pandemic, when millions of us are especially grateful for our NHS, hear the voices of nine exceptional health workers explaining their passion for medicine and for taking care of others.

  • Book extract
  • Book extract

Of incubators, orchids and artificial wombs

| Claire HornSteven Pocock

In this extract from Claire Horn’s new book, ‘Eve: The Disobedient Future of Birth’, she traces the development of the artificial womb, soon to become a reality.

  • Long read
  • Long read

The ambivalence of air

| Daisy LafargeCarol Nazatto

Daisy Lafarge investigates the effects of air quality and pressure on body and mind, exploring air as cure, but one with contradictions.