Have you read the Fit for the Future, the new NHS Ten Year Plan? I have. All 170 pages. And as an interested layperson, indeed patient, there seems to me to be a lot to praise. What there isn’t, is a single mention of creative health, despite its relevance to some of the main issues being addressed by the Plan. Look for music, dancing, visual arts, creative writing – all in vain. There isn’t even a mention of social prescribing as such, even though the NHS is paying for around for around 4,000 link workers whose work includes referrals to creative activity. Exercise / sport by contrast gets a whole section (understandably) for its contribution to tackling obesity. However, some people would prefer their exercise to be through dance or a wellness walk that included sketching. And considering this is a Plan based on evidence, there is plenty of it when it comes to the health benefits of creative health.
I am sure all is not lost and the National Centre for Creative Health – which we support – and many others will be pointing out the role of creativity in delivering the Ten Year Plan. Although not the entirety of creative health, the NHS certainly has the most critical institutional role as explored in our report, Creatively Minded and the NHS.
Reading Fit for the Future confirmed to me a nagging concern: that those of us that believe in creative health – and for the Baring Foundation, creative mental health – need to be getting our message through to senior members of central Government much more, as well as to local commissioners and arts funders such as the Arts Council England. I can’t recall any statements by the Secretaries of State for Health or for Culture on creative health so far. The All-Party Parliamentary Group on Creative Health does sterling work and is well led by Simon Opher, an MP and GP. It so far has had a presentation by the Minister for Health Prevention (Ashley Dalton), which is a start, but in my view, not enough. This is now more important with the abolition of NHS England and statements by the Government that they wish to take responsibility directly for what the NHS does.
As many of you will be aware, in many ways Wales provides a model for a more strategic approach to cooperation between the arts sector and the NHS. The Chair of our Arts Committee, Nick Capaldi, was Chief Executive of the Arts Council of Wales (ACW) in the period that this collaboration was born and reminds us that it took a long time and a lot of effort on all sides. But it was very much worth it.
Wales provides a model for a more strategic approach to cooperation between the arts sector and the NHS
As well as a cross party group at the Senedd, the partnership includes an MOU between ACW and the NHS Confederation. Tapering funding put arts experts into each of the seven Welsh Health Boards. We jointly fund some creative mental health activity for each of those Health Boards. Relevant Ministers take keen interest in the work. This is, of course, no panacea. There is no mention of creativity in the latest Welsh Government Plan for the NHS. The health and arts sectors are under great strain in Wales as in England, but it does provide a top-level framework.
The very good 2017 report by the APPG on Creative Health is often described as influential. And many ways it was. But its recommendations regarding central government got nowhere. It is time to brush them off. And here is my version of proposals for a more strategic national approach to creative health in England:
- Co-production of a creative health strategy between the arts and voluntary health sectors and the NHS, which includes how creative health is integrated into the Ten Year Health Plan.
- Ministerial responsibility for the strategy in both the Departments for Culture Media and Sport (DCMS) and Health and Social Care (DHSC) with annual meetings with stakeholders.
- Civil servants with responsibility for creative health in both Departments.
- At least one art expert at a senior level in every Integrated Care System.
And for that to take place over the next 18 months.
David Cutler is the Director of the Baring Foundation and leads its Arts programme.