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Alex Coulter

Director

Alex Coulter has been Director of the National Centre for Creative Health since it launched in 2021. She was Director of Arts & Health South West (AHSW) from 2010 until the organisation closed in 2024. In that role she provided the secretariat for the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Arts, Health and Wellbeing (APPG) and project managed the APPG’s two-year inquiry which led to the publication of the Creative Health report in 2017. AHSW delivered three Culture Health and Wellbeing International Conferences and along with colleagues in the field helped set up the Culture, Health and Wellbeing Alliance (CHWA) and the Lived Experience Network (LENs). The NCCH works closely with CHWA and the LENs.

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Jayne Howard

Programme Manager

Jayne joined us as Creative Health Associate Programme Manager in 2023 and now manages all our Programmes. She joined us from her role as the Founding Director of Arts Well CIC, a social enterprise that places arts and creativity at the centre of health and wellbeing. Her belief in the power of creativity to transform wellbeing in communities and individuals is grounded in a career in education and public health; over 15 years of initiating, advising and collaborating on arts-based health projects in Cornwall; a strong sense of social justice and a passion for the arts and the power of partnerships. She is a qualified teacher, workplace coach and mentor, an Action Learning Facilitator, and has a B.Ed, an MA and two PgDips in art and design theory, English literature and professional writing.

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Alexis Butt

General Manager

Alexis joined NCCH as General Manager (part-time) in 2020. As an arts graduate with over 20 years’ experience working across the arts and cultural sector in the UK and in Asia, Alexis offers a hands-on approach in the smooth running of the NCCH and provides support to the NCCH Director in the day to day management of the organisation.

Alexis worked part-time for a regional arts and health charity until 2024, and she continues to support creative health work in the South West as a volunteer Champion for the Culture, Health and Wellbeing Alliance (CHWA). In her free time she can often be found in her studio painting or creating silver jewellery.

To contact Alexis email info[at]ncch.org.uk

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Dr Jane Hearst

Research and Policy Manager 

Dr Jane Hearst joined our staff team as Research and Policy Manager from 1st August 2025.

Jane was NCCH's Midlands Creative Health Associate as part of the Creative Health Associates Programme from July 2023 – March 2025. She was celebrated as Entrepreneurial Collaborator of the Year at the Real Entrepreneurs’ Awards 2025 for her work in supporting Creative Health network development across the 11 Integrated Care Systems in the Midlands region. She is the author of the 2025 Routledge text, A Creative Health Communication Framework: Addressing the Compatibility and Marketability of Mental Health and Wellbeing Services – a book which features work from her PhD in Creative Health – and editor of the upcoming publication Creative Health in Systems: the People, Priorities and Challenges Shaping Integration. 

Other notable Creative Health work includes her film, blog, and podcast content with Creative Synthesist and Arts Council funded work in Creative Health literature. She is passionate about systems mapping and artistic data visualisation, network analysis and cultural change, synthesist of expert insights, and multimedia communication. 

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