this is you if: you are - or support the work of - an elected official with an interest in furthering work in this area, or an area related to it (e.g. social prescribing). You have some influence over how public funds and resources are allocated.
Key overall recomendation
➔ clearly articulate the roles, scopes and priorities of statutory bodies - health, care, the arts - and identify and fund clear, distinct areas for collaboration between them (e.g. mental health, social prescribing)
Groundwork
➔ support and incentivise health and local authority leaders to enable innovation, and explore how the arts and creativity can contribute to their organisational priorities, especially in these areas.
Test
➔ ring-fence funding in statutory health and care bodies and research funders’ budgets for prevention and innovation.
➔ give clear guidance to commissioners about the nature, tone and methods of evaluating success in health and care systems. What are we aiming for?
Invest
➔ allow for longer term budget and planning cycles for statutory health and care funding, e.g. NHS and local authorities.
➔ support and encourage local authorities to subsidise arts activities for community health and wellbeing.
➔ consider how we measure success in statutory bodies, valuing insights that show progress on the outcomes that matter most to the people involved, as well as quantitative data.
Scale
➔ normalise access to culture and the arts for all as central to life, health and wellbeing (as happens with sport, for example).
➔ shape our economy towards wellbeing, where investment in the arts is made with the aim of enhancing people’s wellbeing and preventing illness, which then in turn benefits health and care systems and reduces demand.