A sensory arts scheme aimed at improving hospital wards for dementia patients has been unveiled at Bradford Royal Infirmary.

Bradford Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust is one of 12 in the UK to have secured a £50,000 grant for The King’s Fund Enhancing the Healing Environment Programme.

The Trust beat 60 other applicants to receive the Department of Health grant, to which it will give a further £15,000.

The scheme will see the corridors of wards 23, 29 and 30, which accommodate dementia patients, refurbished with sensory art.

Project manager Dawn Parkes said: “By improving the environment, we can enable patients with dementia to recover their health in the same way others do.

“A project like this is very important to us as evidence suggests those with dementia often have longer hospital stays than those without and their experience of hospital care is generally not as good as other patients.

The project, which will involve artist Sarah Szikora, is expected to be completed by September 2011 .

Sarah Waller, director of The King’s Fund, who visited the hospital yesterday, said she hoped the scheme would help raise awareness of dementia.

She said: “Having visited the Trust and seen the wards, I know that the standard of care for people with dementia will be immeasurably improved as a result of the scheme.”

About 700,000 people in the UK suffer from dementia.