The power of the arts to support health and wellbeing is increasingly recognised and evidenced internationally.

Here in Wales, since 2017, the Arts Council of Wales and the Welsh NHS Confederation have been working in partnership to advance arts, health and wellbeing across the country with the aim of improving lives and reducing pressure on national health and care services.

Through a groundbreaking Memorandum of Understanding (MoU), now in its seventh year, they work together with arts and health partners to raise awareness of the benefits that the arts can have on people’s health and wellbeing and embed arts and health initiatives across the NHS in Wales.

The MoU has provided a springboard for a sustainable partnership and model in Wales that has gained international recognition. The sectors’ strategic approach was recognised as a model of good practice by the Baring Foundation in Creatively Minded and the NHS and a global study on arts and health conducted by Lancet Public Health stated “this memorandum is one of the most concrete commitments we found, both in terms of the intersectoral approach and the specific investment and action”.

A national arts and health capacity-building programme has introduced and developed arts and health coordinator roles in each of Wales’ health boards, as well as Velindre University NHS Trust. A 2022 evaluation of this programme found that arts and health roles within the NHS improve the health and wellbeing of patients, staff and the wider population for a relatively low cost across prevention, mitigation, treatment and recovery.

The Arts Council of Wales’ Arts, Health and Wellbeing Lottery programme supports partnerships between the country’s arts organisations; health, social care and third sector; individual artists and practitioners; and local authorities, to deliver a range of initiatives and programmes that respond to health challenges, with some recent examples including a singing and breathing project to support people recovering from long COVID and other conditions, as well as poetry sessions for young people living with diabetes.

Meanwhile, a three-year Arts and Minds programme, supported by the Arts Council of Wales and the Baring Foundation, has enabled all seven health boards to develop creative projects with artists and arts organisations that have responded to local mental health priorities.

A Cultural Cwtsh

Wales’ arts and health work is benefiting NHS and social care staff, as well as their patients.

The Arts Council of Wales’ bilingual website Cultural Cwtsh, for example, was launched in March 2022 as a ‘thank you’ from Wales’ arts sector to the country’s NHS and social care staff, recognising the need to support their wellbeing as well as their patients’.

Developed in consultation with Health Education Improvement Wales (HEIW) and Social Care Wales, it featured more than 70 diverse creative wellbeing resources – from  juggling and dance sessions to poetry and nature walks – designed to help busy health and care staff switch off and unwind. These resources have since been embedded in Public Health Wales’ Hapus programme, making them freely accessible to everyone. You can access them at any time on the Hapus.Wales website.

For more information on Wales’ arts and health work, visit the Arts Council of Wales’ website.