Music to My Ears - Exploring the Potential of Music Therapy in Urgent, Emergency and Crisis Care

When I started this collaboration project, I didn’t expect Music Therapy to make such a lasting impression. But it quickly emerged for me as one of the Allied Health Professions (AHPs) with significant potential to ease pressures across urgent, emergency, and crisis care. Music Therapy not only supports individuals in both physical and mental health crises, but also offers tangible benefits to the staff working alongside them.

Music Therapy: Small but Mighty

Music Therapy is one of the smallest AHP groups, just 800 Music Therapists compared to 42,500 Occupational Therapists are registered with HCPC in the United Kingdom. Music Therapists work across the lifespan, and in many clinical settings, including in paediatrics, neonatal care, education, mental health, neurology, dementia, and palliative care.  However, it was international research on using Music Therapy in the Emergency Department to treat chronic pain that really caught my attention. Pain and mental health crisis are now common within the Emergency Department, and so the potential of Music Therapy being used in this setting began to grow in my mind. Another standout was the use of Music Therapy with emergency service staff, led by the Blue Light Symphony Orchestra (BLSO).

I reached out to BLSO’s Musical Director Seb Valentine, who connected me with BLSO Trustee and Music Therapist Amanda Thorpe, who had led this work. That introduction sparked wider conversations, including with Claire Flower, Consultant Music Therapist in my NHS Trust and Rhianne Woodfine, a fellow Occupational Therapist now working as a Dementia Specialist Practitioner. I discovered that Rhianne had already talked with Claire about the possible use of singing sessions for hospital patients with dementia after Rhianne’s own experience working in the Emergency Department. These informal discussions led to the five of us meeting for an informal conversation to share experiences and thoughts about uses of music and music therapy within Urgent and Emergency Care. 

Music for Patients

There was immediate recognition of music’s potential as an intervention for both physical and mental health support, with particular purpose for patients experiencing trauma and social isolation. Amanda explained that one of the benefits of Music Therapy is that it does not require active participation and it can be easily adapted to address individual needs.

Rhianne shared her experience of seeing a patient with dementia in the Emergency Department who was becoming increasingly distressed. Rhianne had established a shared interest in Country & Western music with the patient, and so began singing a Johnny Cash song. This simple act had a profound effect in calming the patient, much to surprise and gratitude of the visiting Doctor who had come to assess them.

I also recalled a patient who had been sedated due to emotional distress, which led to several days of drowsiness. A musical intervention might have offered a non-pharmacological, more cost-effective alternative, by reducing medication use and length of hospital stay.

However, Amanda reminded us that music isn’t a one-size-fits-all solution. Patients experiencing trauma can be more vigilant which can prevent them from blocking out other noises to focus on the music. Music Therapists are trained in assessment and the delivery of therapy interventions using personalised and professionally delivered musical stimuli to achieve specific outcomes.

Music for the Environment

Despite these limitations, there was strong agreement about the role that music could play in enhancing clinical environments. Seb highlighted how some Taxis now offer music choices to passengers—an idea that could be adapted for ambulances or even police station custody suites.

Amanda added a word of caution that music can evoke different emotions for different people - what soothes one person may agitate another. Therefore, music in shared environments must be carefully curated.

Claire introduced the concept of Environmental Music Therapy, where live music is used to create a calming atmosphere for everyone in the space. It made me wonder—how many people sitting in an Emergency Department waiting room might feel better, and go home sooner, if the air was filled with sensitive, live music?

Music for Staff

Our conversation also turned to the benefits of music for staff. Claire referenced her publication on Improvising Music Therapy practices in hospital maternity services that showed how music helped both the mother, baby and staff to relax. Whether listening or playing, music can promote emotional connection between people and support everyone’s mental health. This can then lead to improved job satisfaction and enjoyment for staff.

Seb and Amanda shared the outcomes of their Music Therapy workshops with emergency service staff, showing clear reductions in psychological distress and improved well-being. Seb spoke movingly about the high rates of suicide in the police force and other professions that demonstrates the urgent need for more workshops to support frontline workers, including staff working in Emergency Departments.

To learn more or explore hosting a workshop, visit the Blue Light Symphony Orchestra website at: https://www.bluelightsymphony.org/

Looking Ahead: A Harmonious Future

This discussion left me genuinely inspired. Music Therapy shows real promise as a clinically and cost effective intervention across the urgent, emergency and crisis care pathways. Research has shown it to have the power to reduce pressures in the system by supporting physical and mental recovery sooner, reducing medication use, and improve the healthcare experience for both patients and staff.

To fully unlock its potential, however, we need to move beyond viewing music as a nice-to-have. Music is a complex, powerful therapeutic tool—one that needs skilled practitioners to ensure it’s tailored, effective, and accessible.

There’s also an opportunity to use music more deliberately within the clinical environment and throughout the patient journey. Rhianne suggested the benefits of using Health and Care passports to capture a patient’s musical preferences—a simple yet powerful way to personalise care. But with Music Therapy still a small, under-resourced profession, more investment and economic evaluation are needed to understand its full value.

In short, Music Therapy can be seen as the violin of the orchestra, a more subtle sounding instrument but one that can lead the melody for the other AHP groups to play along to. With the right support, it could become a vital instrument in transforming Urgent, Emergency and Crisis care into something not only more effective, but more human.

I would like to extend my thanks to Seb Valentine and Amanda Thorpe of the Blue Light Symphony Orchestra; and Claire Flower, Juliet Wood and Rhianne Woodfine at Chelsea & Westminster Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, and the British Association for Music Therapy for their support and encouragement of my “AHPs in UEC” Collaboration project.

Thomas Edwards

Occupational Therapist I Adult Educator I Advanced Clinical Practitioner