Creative Health Boards: A New Model for Embedding Creative Health and Community Assets in Health Systems across the UK

We know that taking part in art, culture and other creative activities is good for our health but, currently, we don't know the best way to make it part of our health and care services. Our project aims to address this problem by developing a new model - the 'Creative Health Board' - that will find new ways to fund these activities, link them more closely with health and care services, and make them available to people in communities with the highest risk of poor health. Creative Health Boards will be led by community assets - local charities, community groups, museums and theatres - and involve representatives from the NHS, councils and the private sector to work collaboratively to raise awareness of the health benefits of art, culture and creativity.

The objectives of our project are to identify and share learning about the key elements of a successful Creative Health Board through collaborative research with community assets that:

Demonstrates how art, culture and creative activities can be made more accessible for people at most at risk of poor health.
Tests new approaches to funding, delivering, and measuring the impact of art, culture and creative activities provided by community assets.
Builds the skills and confidence of community assets to carry out their own research and use evidence and digital technology to improve how they work.
Develops new tools and guidance, including a Creative Health Handbook, so that art, culture and creative activities can become a key part of health and care services across the UK.
Our project will be delivered by a team of leading community assets, academics, and representatives of health and care services. Together, we have extensive experience of delivering art, culture and creative activities in communities and undertaking research with people with lived experience of ill-health. Our goal is, by the end of the project, to have established six new Creative Health Boards across the UK. We will share our learning widely so that in the future, arts, culture and creativity can be more easily accessed by people wherever they live.

Our project will have the following impacts:

Health and care services will know about Creative Health Boards and what makes them effective. This will help them to prevent and tackle ill-health in communities where the risks are greatest.
Community assets will be able to use the Creative Health Board model to work more closely and effectively with health and care services. They will also develop new knowledge and skills to carry-out their own research and to use evidence and digital technology to improve their work. Finally, they will have access to better funding models that can help them grow and develop the activities they offer.
Individuals and communities at risk of or experiencing poor health will benefit from having a wider and more accessible range of art, culture and creative activities provided by community assets. In the long-term this will lead to better health and wellbeing for everyone involved.