Fit for the Future: 10 Year Health Plan for England

Fit for the Future - 10 Year Health Plan for England: What it means for creative health. 

The government has published their much anticipated 10 Year Health Plan and everyone is having their say on it. We want to take a look back, and forward, and reflect on what it means for us, and the thousands of others, who believe in the power of creative health.

People, patients, service users are at the heart of the ambition for the future of health in England. The NHS will "abolish 'one size fits all' care". Making this principle central to all health and care is very much welcomed.

At the heart of prevention

It is here we see the greatest opportunity for creative health and its role in the wider ecosystem. The 10 Year Plan recognises the significance of Professor Sir Michael Marmot's work on the social determinants of health and acknowledges that social determinants of ill health cluster in areas of deprivation, which contributes to increasing health inequalities in this country. 

The pioneering Greater Manchester Integrated Care Partnership’s Live Well programme features as a case study in the Plan. Creative health has a strong foothold within Live Well, through its community-led health and well-being approach, where neighbourhoods, the VCSE and people with lived experience come together with public services to build community wealth and therefore start to reduce inequalities. We feature the GM Creative Health Strategy in the Creative Health Review: How Policy Can Embrace Creative Health  (published by NCCH and the All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on Arts, Health and Wellbeing – now the APPG on Creative Health – in December 2023).

As a Commissioner on the Creative Health Review, Michael Marmot said: "Evidence shows that cultural and creative activities are good for mental and physical health. To reduce health inequalities, then, we need to create the conditions for the benefits of cultural and creative activities to spread to all members of society." He spoke at the APPG on Creative Health’s roundtable on Prevention earlier this year and you can read a blog about the event here. This summary briefing features examples of how creative health can contribute to primary and secondary prevention. 

Children and Young People’s Mental Health

The Plan recognises this as a key priority, requiring a whole societal approach. Joined up work between the NHS, schools, colleges and universities - with additional mental health support in schools and colleges - linked to the Children's Wellbeing and Schools Bill is a core objective. Creative health is proven to  make an impact in this upstream approach, as our recent blog sets out: why the arts in schools matter for mental health. The Plan states that the government will: "also ensure embedded support for children and young people’s mental health in new Young Futures Hubs, alongside a wellbeing offer, to ensure there is no ‘wrong front door’ for people seeking help."  We don't have much information on the Young Futures Hubs yet but we are told that in the summer, the: "Department for Culture, Media and Sport will publish a new National Youth Strategy, which will set out how this government will support young people in all aspects of their lives including, support for mental health, wellbeing and the ability to develop positive social connections." A wide range of research and NHS evidence supports our call for creative health to be embedded in mental health services for children and young people, from prevention throughout pathways. Many NHS professionals have emphasised their support for the arts and culture’s role in tackling young people’s mental health. You can hear directly from them here – and also hear the voice of young people in a special Arts Council England commissioned research programme in 2025 here.

Employment and economic growth

The Get Britain Working White Paper recognises the link between health, employment and the economy, and the importance of a joined-up approach to improve outcomes. Creative health is proven to be an effective, high return on investment approach in the prevention, management, treatment and recovery of  long-term physical and mental health conditions keeping people out of work. For example Designs in Mind (Shropshire) is a design studio where adults living with mental health challenges work together on ambitious, experimental art and design projects as part of a skills-based recovery programme. 

Singing programmes have shown improved respiratory symptoms and quality of life for people with COPD. Evaluation of a 12-week British Lung Foundation programme found 45% of participants recorded reduced GP visits, and 18% reported reduced hospital admissions. Creative health is an important tool in the self-management of chronic pain, as evidenced in this Artlift programme. 

Creative health empowers people to take control of long-term conditions, and to build confidence, skills, self-esteem and resilience through engagement in meaningful activity. This is a stepping stone to volunteering in some programmes, leading on to employment. 

The expansion of Health and Growth Accelerators to more areas is positive. In the current West Yorkshire Accelerator site, partners have made a significant commitment to creative health as a joined-up approach to health and workforce training – recently announcing a £470,000 tender to develop a Creative Health System.

The Neighbourhood Health Service

The Neighbourhood Health Service will lead on prevention and "patients will not be passive recipients of care." By 2027, 95% of people with complex needs will have an agreed care plan which will: "be co-created with patients and cover their holistic needs, not just their treatment." Creative health effectively facilitates this person-centred approach. In East Cambridgeshire, the Integrated Neighbourhood Team wanted to hear from younger children about 'what matters to them' and asked Fullscope to explore engaging young children to co-produce solutions. More than 700 individual maps and creative prescriptions describing 'what matters to me' were made by 1,116 primary school children, using methods developed by creative health organisation Cambridge Curiosity and Imagination.

Neighbourhood health centres (NHCs) will be established in every community, beginning with places where healthy life expectancy is lowest. The Plan states that: "NHCs will co-locate NHS, local authority and voluntary sector services, to help create an offer that meets population need holistically." 

Creative health is already proving integral to neighbourhood health across the NHS and care partners. In June 2025, the new St George's Health and Wellbeing Hub in Havering in North East London published a Creative Health Strategy 2025-30. Dr Claire Fuller, Co-National Medical Director - Primary Care says: “It is great to see how North East London is using creative health to improve health outcomes and experiences for the local population and bring together neighbourhood working.” The strategy recognises the importance of a creative health professional to lead the work. 

We strongly believe these 'bridging roles' should be part of every Integrated Neighbourhood team. 

Perhaps inevitably, 'community' and 'neighbourhood' through an NHS lens are not exactly as many people in communities and neighbourhoods would see them. The plan states that there will be: " ‘single neighbourhood providers’ that deliver enhanced services for groups with similar needs over a single neighbourhood (c.50,000 people). In many areas, the existing primary care network footprint is well set up as a springboard for this type of working. The second will create ‘multi-neighbourhood providers’ (250,000+ people). These larger providers will deliver care that requires working across several different neighbourhoods (e.g. end of life care)." It is surprising that there isn't more space given to the role of the VCFSE sector considering the government's commitment to working in partnership and the sector's recommendations. 

The next decade – and implementing the Plan 

There is much more to be considered in the Plan, including the potential for creative health to engage with the new system architecture, with the financial structures including the forthcoming commissioning framework, and with the announcements regarding workforce. We recently published this report by the North of England Commissioning Support Unit which considers the potential for commissioning creative health. 

If you are looking to introduce, or further embed creative health in your organisation, system, or team, please take a look at our growing body of new resources, including examples, good practice guides and tips, and further support: https://ncch.org.uk/how

We are also focussing on researching models for sustainable funding for creative health over the next six months. If you have information and ideas on this, please get in touch: info@ncch.org.uk