A national project in 2020 to immortalise in pictures many of the NHS professionals working through the Covid-19 pandemic featured dozens of colleagues at the former Western Sussex Hospitals (now part of UHSussex) painted for posterity.
The #PortraitsforNHSheroes campaign became an Instagram hit after artist Tom Croft painted an A&E nurse in full PPE as his way of giving something back to the health service.
As the project grew, the public was encouraged to put people forward for portraiture and the trust’s head of clinical governance and patient safety enthusiastically embraced the opportunity. “This became quite a thing,” said Jo Habben, who began spending her evening nominating her colleagues for pictures. Others also joined in and it grew to include more than 50 members of staff some of whom can be seen in the snapshot here.
