Next in our series introducing the 2026-27 cohort of In Practice Research Fellows is Maddie Rose-Carbone, Programme and Evaluation Lead at Creative Health Camden. With a Master’s degree in Creative Health from UCL and a BSc in Psychology from the University of Sussex, she is passionate about the power of textile-based creative practice to improve health and wellbeing. Here we catch up with Maddie about her research project ‘Evidencing how a Creative Health charity within an NHS PCN improves health and wellbeing outcomes for marginalised groups facing health inequalities’ and her plans for the Fellowship.
If your research was a film, what would the title be?
The Brushstrokes of Lived Experience: a story of using art as health evidence.
What will you be doing during your Medical Humanities in Practice Research Fellowship?
I will be examining and championing the power of using creativity as health evidence, to explore how our work improves health outcomes. As a creative health charity, we facilitate space that enables our participants to be creative, thus improving their health and wellbeing. The activities which we run are often used as a tool to explore health journeys and experiences, and creativity acts as a communication tool for stories that are often difficult to say out loud. So, I will examine whether we can use visual communication to share the impact of the work we do to our NHS colleges. This will hopefully be used as an alternative to extractive data collection methods that often reduce patients to economic values.
What expertise and experiences will you be drawing on?
For the past four and a half years I have worked in a Creative Health charity and for the last two years I have been working as the Programme and Evaluation Lead. This means I regularly facilitate creative sessions to improve our participants health and wellbeing, and I also develop our evaluation strategies which keep Lived Experience at its core.
I will also be drawing on my experiences as a patient. In the past couple of years, I have accessed NHS mental health services and used my textiles practice to communicate and process my feelings.
Why are you excited about working in the medical humanities?
I am excited to work in the medical humanities as they have a long history of using art to tell health stories and will give me the tools to communicate through artistic practice stories to a health audience. I also love working in an interdisciplinary team, it enables you to learn from so many different voices!
What changes would you like to see as a result of your research?
I would love to see more of our participants advocating for themselves using their own methods to tell their stories. I would also love to see health organisations, such as the NHS, appreciate alternative storytelling methods.
What interests or hobbies do you have outside of your research that might surprise people?
I am an avid textiles artist – I touch yarn or fabric pretty much every day! I also love reading a good book, but more surprisingly I have recently gotten into lifting weights (I can pick up my bodyweight!) and I am determined to do a pull-up at least once in my life.
We warmly welcome Maddie to the Discovery Research Platform and look forward to working with her.
Continue reading our interview series with our 2026-27 cohort of In Practice Research Fellows:
- An interview with David McQuillan
- An interview with Fouziya Asim
- An interview with Kate Quinn
- An interview with Sam Slatcher
- An interview with Sophie-Jo Peel
Find out more:
- Read the announcement of this year’s In Practice Research Fellows
- Find out more about the 2025-26 cohort of In Practice Research Fellows
