The Arts Are Good For Your Health

Creative Health: The Arts for Health and Wellbeing

We welcome this Report published in July 2017 which sets out research, evidence gathering and discussions with health care professionals, patients, artists, MPs and policy makers. Produced by the All Party Parliamentary Group on Arts, Health and Wellbeing it follows two years of inquiry.

The Report finds: "arts-based aproaches can help people to stay well, recover faster, manage long term conditions and experience a better quality of life." It also shows how arts interventions can save money and help staff in their work.

It recommends the National Institiute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) includes the use of the arts in healthcare in its guidance where evidence justifies it and hopes that:

• New collaborations will be formed across conventional boundaries.
• The thinking and practice of people working in health and social care will be influenced. 
• A new culture will grow that supports the government in the process of change towards the creation of a society which is both healthy and "health creating." 

Finally the Report calls for "all those who believe in the value of the arts for health and wellbeing to speak up." 

It goes on to say "We will work with all who believe, as we do, that the arts offer an essential opportunity for the improvement of health and wellbeing."  

To contact the APPG and lend your support to the arts in health, email Alexandra Coutler on: coultera@parliament.uk

This post was first published in a slightly different form on Christine's blog at WordWell Writing Workshops