Creative Health Associates Programme Impact
The Creative Health Associates Programme is approaching its halfway point and all seven of our regional Associates are having an impact in their respective Integrated Care Systems and across the wider NHS England regions.
The aim of the programme is to further embed creative health within health and care systems, through building relationships, sharing knowledge and intelligence between sectors and improving understanding of the potential benefits of creative health on health and wellbeing of individuals, communities and wider society.
Each Associate is responding to the priorities within their local Integrated Care System, but there are a couple of themes that run across the programme:
- Mental health and wellbeing, particularly of children and young people;
- Health inequalities, with a focus on particular groups such as refugees and asylum seekers, or people with protected characteristics or looking at the health inequalities that exist between neighbourhoods and places within Integrated Care Board areas.
The Associates are engaging with leaders across the system, including Directors of Public Health, Chief Medical Officers, people leading on health inequalities and population health improvement, GP and Allied Health Professional Leads, Social Prescribing leads as well as with colleagues in the wider Voluntary, Community and Social Enterprise (VCSE) sector and academic institutions.
Associates have been mapping key individuals, organisations and networks to have a better understanding of current creative health activity and the potential for future development. They have been able to contribute to ICB strategies such as social prescribing and dementia, as well as working with partners to develop creative health strategies, partnerships and boards as an important legacy from the programme.
There has been an enthusiastic response to the Programme from many parts of the health and care system, particularly those concerned with prevention (both primary and secondary) and there is increasing recognition that there is a need to ‘do things differently’ in the NHS in order to address complex challenges such as health inequalities, increasing demand for services and workforce development.
Over the next two months we will be hosting a series of regional webinars, to bring together health and care professionals from across each NHS England region to consider the Creative Health Review and Toolkit and provide an opportunity for regional discussions on how to take creative health work forward over the coming months. We will also be running an event for systems that are looking to develop creative health strategies or similar.
Although we still have 9 months of the programme remaining, we are already thinking about dissemination of the programme so that we can demonstrate its impact and share our learning.
Find out more about the Programme and the Creative Health Associate in your region here >>
About the Creative Health Associates Programme
Funded by Arts Council England, the programme is being delivered by seven Creative Health Associates hosted by Integrated Care Boards (ICBs), one in each NHS region in England. They are supported by a Creative Health Programme Manager through peer support and leadership development.
Participating Integrated Care Boards (ICBs)
- NHS Norfolk & Waveney ICB
- NHS North East London ICB
- NHS Shropshire, Telford & Wrekin ICB
- NHS North East & North Cumbria ICB
- NHS Lancashire & South Cumbria ICB
- NHS Sussex ICB
- NHS Devon ICB
Meet the team
- Programme Manager - Jayne Howard
- East of England - Olivia Dean
- London – Conni Rosewarne
- Midlands- Jane Hearst
- North East and Yorkshire - Alice Thwaite
- North West - Elaine Ryan- McNeill
- South West - Penny Calvert
- South East - Esther Watts
Discover more about the Creative Health Associates Team >>
The Creative Health Associates programme represents an investment of £600,000 over 18 months by Arts Council England, one of the largest grants Arts Council has made to a creative health project. It will support the NCCH’s ambition to foster the conditions for creative health to be integral to health and care and demonstrate the power of culture and creativity to benefit the lives of individuals and communities and make a significant contribution to meeting the aims of Arts Council England’s Creative Health and Wellbeing plan by promoting creative health as a fundamental part of living well and by placing creativity at the heart of people’s lives, particularly those experiencing inequalities.
More information, news and Media Release >>
