This report, Creative Health: The Arts for Health and Wellbeing, was launched by the All Party Parliamentary Group on Arts Health and Wellbeing on 19 July. It took place at the Houses of Parliament, with cross-party support including Lord Howarth of Newport, Ed Vaisey MP, Sarah Wollaston MP as well as John Glenn MP, the newly appointed Minister for the Arts, Heritage and Tourism.
This hugely important report pulls together two years of work from the APPG enquiry into the role of arts in health and wellbeing. Its headline messages are:
- The arts can help keep us well, aid our recovery and support longer lives lived better
- The arts can help meet major challenges facing health and social care; ageing long term conditions and loneliness and mental health
- The arts can help save money in the health and social care sector
Our project “A Choir In Every Care Home” (in partnership with Live Music Now and the Sidney De Haan Centre at Canterbury Christchurch University), is cited within the report. It refers to our Evidence Review carried out by the Sidney de Haan Centre and (at page 125) it quotes the finding that “research on group singing for older people shows convincingly that singing can be beneficial for psychological and social wellbeing”. It also cites (at page 134) our finding that singing activity can positively engage people with dementia across a spectrum of severity from mild to late stage.
A full copy of the report can be downloaded from the link below.