A WRITER is to help young patients at Nottingham Children's Hospital create an anthology of poems and short stories.

Nottingham poet Mahendra Solanki will spend 16 weeks running workshops with young patients from the Queen's Medical Centre.

The workshops will take place on the wards and at Monty Hind Youth Club in Lenton allowing the children to write poems and short stories about their experiences of hospital or their condition.

Their work will be included a professional anthology.

The scheme is run by First Story – which was launched in Nottingham by the Duchess of Cornwall in January, and has so far only been introduced in schools. The hospital workshops have been paid for by the Nottingham Hospitals Charity.

Donna Hilton, youth service manager at Nottingham Universities Hospital said: "For the young people to be able to creatively express themselves and see their work published in an anthology is such an exciting project for us to be involved with.