'Some projects carry an emotional weight that transcends mere planning and execution. This is one of them.
As Project Director of the NHS Covid Memorial Sculpture, I have the privilege of working alongside my great friend Dean Russell, former MP and business minister, and chair of the Memorial Committee to bring this tribute to life.
For me this memorial is personal as the NHS saved my life on three occasions.
Our mission has been clear: to create a lasting memorial for the NHS heroes who gave their lives on the frontlines of the pandemic. These were the doctors, nurses, paramedics, carers, and countless others who risked and ultimately sacrificed everything for the wellbeing of others. They deserve to be remembered, not just in words, but in something permanent, something powerful. We are grateful for the editor of the Daily.Express Newspaper Group for his total commitment to the memorial.
We knew this had to be more than just a statue. It had to be a piece of art that speaks to the heart. That’s why we turned to Nicola Ravenscroft, a renowned artist whose ability to translate deep human emotion into bronze is simply remarkable. She has created a stunning 10ft sculpture one that embodies the courage, compassion, and selflessness of those we lost.
Raising the necessary funds to make this vision a reality was no small feat, but it was a labour of love. Thanks to the generosity of supporters who understood the importance of this tribute, we were able to move forward with the commission. And now, after months of dedication, the sculpture is ready finaly to be unveiled.
Fittingly, we have chosen 6th March 2026 for the unveiling on the 6th anniversary of the Pandemic in the specially renamed memorial garden The Royal Free Hospital Hampstead will host this momentous occasion, where families, colleagues, and communities and political notables will come together to reflect, to honour, and to remember.
For me, this is not just a project it’s a promise. A promise that those we lost will never be forgotten. That their bravery will stand tall, immortalized in bronze, a reminder to all of us of the price they paid and the gratitude we owe.
This is for them. And for all of us who will carry their legacy forward.'
The unveiling included speeches from Nic Careem, Dean Russell, Nicola Ravenscroft, Lord John Bird MBE, Lord Rami Ranger, and Fatima Whitbread, among others. Children from local schools read poems written about their Covid lockdown experiences.
Nicola Ravenscroft: NHS memorial sculpture A 13ft high sculpture created by sculptor
Nicola Ravenscroft was unveiled on Friday 6 March 2026 in the gardens at the Royal Free Hospital in London as a national memorial honouring the NHS and healthcare workers who gave their lives on the covid front line.
Award winning British activist, cultural ambassador, and entrepreneur, Nic Careem, who has overseen the project to commission the sculpture, says:
‘The NHS is often called the jewel in our crown and rightly so. On three separate occasions, it has saved my life. I owe everything to it…
That’s why, together with my dear friend, former Business Minister Dean Russell, we commissioned renowned artist Nicola Ravenscroft to create a lasting tribute. A 13-foot bronze memorial will soon stand on the grounds of a world-famous London hospital.’
Created by renowned artist Nicola Ravenscroft, this striking bronze sculpture stands as a lasting tribute to the courage, compassion, and dedication of NHS staff. The unveiling will be a moment to come together to honour, remember, and reflect on their extraordinary contribution.
‘Breath’, Nicola’s national memorial sculpture, features two children below two tall trees, as she knew that her design must portray the lives that those on the Covid front line sacrificed their futures to save. In the tender symbolism of this sculpture, two trees touch, intricate as one, soaring ancient beyond two young children who sit in simple-dappled shade and light. Like them, in ongoing gratitude and hope, Nicola celebrates the collective sacrifice of NHS and care workers through an image that lives singing into our future; a new life, their new life.
She says:
‘I remember that the first emotion I felt when invited to come up with a concept, was one of deep sadness. I mused on the sacrificial hearts of so many, courageous, innocent, and now silent. I kept returning in my mind to the tomb of the unknown warrior and in fiery gratitude, I knew that I must give LIFE to something that not only honoured those on the front line who sacrificed their futures to save the lives of others, but that simultaneously, and in ongoing gratitude and hope, celebrated this truth. I wanted their collective sacrifice to live singing into our future; a new life, their new life.’
Pamela Burnard, Professor of Arts, Creativities and Educations, University of Cambridge, says:
‘Nicola Ravenscroft’s sculpture commissioned for the national memorial, not only honours the NHS workers who sacrificed their lives on the covid frontline, it embodies and encourages reimagined ways to co-create these ethical and care-ful spaces. Her sculptures embody everyday and lifelong ways in which we can nurture kinship and in doing so creativity becomes a powerful and provocative agent of change.’
Nicola Ravenscroft
"children are the future dream makers and possibility thinkers"
“I believe the children are our future
Teach them well and let them lead the way”
Sculptor Nicola Ravenscroft places the potential of a child’s clarity of vision, at the heart of her work. A graduate of Camberwell School of Art, a songwriter and an art teacher, she has nurtured many young people into celebrating their inherent creativity, courageously embracing their differences, and imaginative, compassionate possibility-thinking beyond boundaries. Her work has been exhibited at locations as diverse as churches and corporate HQs, colleges, galleries and schools, race courses, street parties and summits. These include: St Martin-in-the-Fields; St John’s College, Cambridge; HSBC global headquarters, Canary Wharf; University of Cambridge Primary School; and Talos Art Gallery, Wiltshire, among others. Her sculpture installation ‘With the Heart of a Child’ was part of a project exploring what the arts in transdisciplinary learning spaces can contribute to primary education.
Always allowing space for open contemplation, interpretation and healing, the themes and images of her emotive body of work, which includes: the national memorial sculpture honouring the selfless sacrifice of NHS and care workers on the covid frontline (‘Breath’); EarthAngel sculptures; ‘With the Heart of a Child’ installations; painting and drawing series entitled ‘Among the Words of Trees’, ‘In the Language of Angels’ and ‘The Song of Songs’; and portrait sculptures, including Gandhi, a commission in 2019 for the Romney Marsh Sculpture Park. Her latest project aims to create a fresh new activist perspective on the Anne Frank story.
‘With the Heart of a Child’ is the over-arching and unifying theme for Nicola’s work. ‘With the Heart of a Child’ is about bringing people together. It is about harnessing our individual giftings and identities. It is about a shared conversation, and it is about children leading leaders. Her dream is that this understanding might be the rock on which our children, standing faith-filled and free, together lay a new foundation for peace.
Nicola's EarthAngel sculptures and installations are intended as are messengers of hope and healing, guardians of our earth (
www.earthangelsforpeace.com). Accordingly, her EarthAngels are portrayed as naturally open-hearted and wide-eyed hungry for mystery, delight and wonder. Like the NHS memorial sculpture, these have also been seen in health settings, including the Great Ormond Street Institute of Child Health, where Nicola is artist-in-residence. Educational settings have also welcomed these installations and these works also featured in a global research initiative led and conducted by researchers in the Faculty of Education at the University of Cambridge (
https://withtheheartofachild.com/cambridge-research/).
Born of an idea that has been beating in the visionary heart of social entrepreneur Nic Careem, Nicola’s latest sculpture project is titled ‘Anne Frank and a Child of Tomorrow’. This fresh new life-size bronze builds on the perceptions of children found in Nicola’s earlier works. It shows us Anne Frank sitting quietly reading her story together with a ‘Child of Tomorrow’, who is reading Anne’s diary, and remembering her experiences. Anne is a child of yesterday who is leading a child of tomorrow.
She writes of the bronze maquette she has created of this sculpture:
‘a living book illustration
that speaks peacefully into the future
with the quiet voice of history
nourishing
our wonder in diversity
our childish delight in imagination
and the healing joy of friendship
Her hope is that ‘from the broken grounds of yesterday grow the seedlings of tomorrow’.
Her work offers still, safe spaces for mediation and meditation, diplomacy and reconciliation, empathy and engagement.
Quotes about Nicola’s work
“In this adult-centric world of complicated international issues, of striving personalities, conflicts, and the apparently unstoppable demise of meaningful, substantive interpersonal communication... it might be easy and perhaps seem an acceptable expedient to overlook the basic need to convey essential themes between generations: our responsibilities as the residents of one single ecosphere, and also the message of how to preserve Life itself. Tangibly, nothing embodies Life and our interconnectedness better than the Earth’s one universal solvent: water. That is the essential message, to all children.
Nicola Ravenscroft's works value the awareness by children with regard to what is universal and therefore truly important. This artistic and educational effort deserves to be shared as a uniting message to the next generations, in all the countries we have created but more importantly for all the children of Earth.”
Peter Carlson, Washington, D.C
“… a sculpture installation which embodies a powerful set of values and a message central to solving the pressing planetary problems shared as a global community.
This installation creates an expressive form that enables the global community to secure an empathic participation in the lives of others and in their settings.”
Pamela Burnard, Professor of Arts, Creativities & Education, University of Cambridge
“'With the Heart of a Child’ touches at the core anticipation and hopeful dreaming that springs from childhood. With the intention to connect us all in deeply reflecting about our purpose, our hopes and the possibilities that arise when humanity works for the betterment of all, the children and penguin invite new possibility thinking. Through the organic sculptures, questions about childhood, the future and our collective responsibility are provoked: open-ended responses are encouraged so that together there is opportunity to make a difference.”
James Biddulph, Headteacher, University of Cambridge Primary School
“Nicola Ravenscroft’s extraordinary sculptures stand as symbols of human hope, grace and defiance in the face of climate change. By being cast in bronze, they symbolise our resilience in the face of all that the winds can throw at us. By being cast as children, they mirror our fragility amid the havoc we wreak on the world, and on all that sustains us.”
Martin Wright @MartinFutures
Contact
nicola@nicolaravenscroft.com www.nicolaravenscroft.com Details of unveiling
Unveiling of the NHS Memorial Sculpture
Honouring the NHS heroes we lost to Covid‑19
Date: Friday, 6 March 2026
Time: 12 pm – 1 pm
Location: The Gardens, Royal Free Hospital, Pond Street, London NW3 2QG
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