A NINE year old girl has met Prime Minister Boris Johnson after winning an art competition.

Ella Buckley, of Pennoweth Primary School, Redruth, has won the Your NHS art competition with her design for the hospital of the future.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson said: “I was delighted to welcome the young winners of the Your NHS art competition to Downing Street. Their creative designs and visions for our health service were spectacular.”

Supported by the Department of Health and Social Care and Royal Cornwall Hospitals NHS Trust, the competition invited primary school children to get creative to mark £99.9 million of government investment to build a new Women’s and Children’s Unit at Royal Cornwall Hospital.

Open to all primary schools across Cornwall, the competition invited children to share their vision for the ideal hospital or healthcare centre of the future.

Ella’s winning picture was chosen by a panel of expert local judges after over 210 entries were submitted by schools across Cornwall.

Ella went to 10 Downing Street with The Prime Minister, her mother and father Samantha and Jason Buckley, as well as nine fellow winners from across the country.

She said: “I can’t believe I’ve won the Your NHS art competition. I really love drawing, and it was so much fun imagining what my local hospital could look like in the future. The NHS makes me feel safe and loved because it helps all of us so much when we are sick.”

The judges were really impressed by Ella’s imaginative and inspiring winning entry. They particularly enjoyed how Ella put a lot thought into the equipment and tools a hospital needs to help patients and save lives, as well as the empathy and movement her picture conveyed.

With designs featuring healing gardens, robotic pharmacies and spray antibiotic slides, 10 entries from budding artists across the country were chosen as winners. The 10 prize winners travelled to London on Monday, February 24 to share their designs with the Prime Minister. The artistic talents of Ella and her fellow winners have also won them £500 of art vouchers for their school.

The winning entry in Cornwall will take pride of place in the Royal Cornwall Hospital soon, along with all of the designs that were shortlisted as finalists in the area.

Cathryn Andrews, headteacher at Pennoweth Primary School, said: “We are very proud of Ella. We had amazing entries from across the school and know the standard was high across the region. The competition was a great opportunity to get our children thinking about the NHS and I for one, can’t wait to see some of Ella’s ideas come to fruition in the future.”