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Open Letter to Cardiff and Vale University Health Board

28th August 2024 
 
Wales Arts Health & Wellbeing Network (WAHWN), our members and partners across Wales are devastated to learn about the imminent closure of the arts and health department at Cardiff & Vale University Health Board, the longest running service of its kind in Wales.       

We stand in solidarity with the incredible professional arts and health team and freelance creative practitioners who have supported the mental and physical health of many thousands of patients, visitors, service users, carers and NHS staff over decades, delivering on the health board’s key strategic priorities.      

We are writing to you to express our concern of the detrimental impact this will have on all these stakeholders. As this service closure is of interest to our 900+ network members, we are writing this as an open letter.  

“I cannot express enough my deepest disappointment for the Arts to be closing within the health sector at Cardiff and Vale. It makes no sense to me. I hope they can reconsider this decision and see the impacts I, and many others, have experienced, provided and seen through the Arts.” (Service User) 

Whilst we fully understand the financial pressure all health boards are currently under, we are concerned that there has been no consultation period with the arts and health team, arts providers or staff and patient groups to consider the closure of the arts and health service. This is especially incoherent with the messaging you gave in last year’s Arts for Health and Wellbeing Report 2023 in your Message from the Chair:  

“This year’s report further encapsulates the remarkable journey undertaken by the Arts Programme at Cardiff and Vale UHB, guided by the vision of integrating arts into healthcare. The commitment of the Arts team remains steadfast, and the results are tangible. From the pages of this report, you’ll discover how our initiatives, inspired by the stories of those we serve, have unfolded. Whether it’s the vibrant exhibitions that grace our hospital walls, the therapeutic arts workshops that provide solace, or the innovative partnerships that amplify our reach, every endeavour is a testament to the potential that lies at the intersection of art and well-being. This year has overwhelmingly demonstrated how art is a conduit for healing and self discovery, and we are dedicated to further enhancing the holistic wellbeing of individuals within the Cardiff and Vale community.” (p.01; our emphasis) 

In July 2024, we were celebrating the CVUHB arts team partnership with Forget-Me-Not Chorus, Motion Control Dance and Rubicon Dance who won the Arts, Business and Health category at the prestigious Arts & Business Cymru Award Ceremony, sponsored by global energy giant, Valero.  

CVUHB will now be the only health board in Wales without an arts and health programme at a time when Wales is receiving international recognition for its innovative cross sector joined up working. Unlike other health boards, CVUHB will now lack the mechanisms through which it can holistically meet the goals of the Wellbeing of Future Generations Act: to help deliver ‘a healthier Wales’, ‘an equal Wales’ and a ‘Wales of vibrant culture and Welsh language’.  CVUHB arts and health work has been promoted nationally and internationally as exemplar practice, with the British Council taking a delegation from Hong Kong to Llandough Hospital earlier this year, with the Vice Chair of the health board in attendance. Artwork commissioned by the arts team was prominently displayed in the Senedd as part of the NHS 75 anniversary celebration last year, with several MSs and the First Minister being in attendance.

CVUHB will also lose out on significant investment from Arts Council Wales capacity building funding and the Baring Foundation and Arts Council Wales ‘Arts & Minds’ national arts and mental health programme supporting vulnerable children and young people.  In a national programme, there will be an irreconcilable gap in this provision in the most densely populated region of Wales, simply put, some of the most vulnerable children and young people in Wales will miss out. 

Globally the World Health Organisation is calling on health policy makers to seek active collaborations with the arts sector and incorporate the arts into training of health professionals. The National Centre for Creative Health and the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Arts, Health and Wellbeing’s Creative Health Review in 2023 made clear recommendations that Creative health should form an integral part of a 21st-century health and social care system – one that is holistic, person-centred, and which focuses on reducing inequalities and supporting people to live well for longer. 
 
“The impact of this decision will be felt across sectors and communities, including the many artists and organisations who have delivered incredible interventions in partnership with the arts and health team over many years.” (Arts organisation)   
 
Wales is leading the way in embedding the arts across its health service with significant traction in recent years at health policy level and a first of its kind MOU between Welsh NHS Confederation and the Arts Council of Wales since 2018. This groundbreaking collaboration has enabled a capacity building programme to support arts and health coordinators in each health board and Velindre NHS Trust, supporting shared priorities, building capacity to deliver and embed arts and creativity within existing health and care systems. Evaluation of the capacity building programme has highlighted how outcomes delivered by arts and health coordinators have contributed to positive impacts on patients and the wider population’s physical and mental health and wellbeing, and across the range of health-related functions – prevention, mitigation, treatment, and recovery. 
 
The role of the arts in impacting health and wellbeing is clearly articulated in the Welsh Government National Framework for Social Prescribing and the draft Mental Health Strategy. Health and wellbeing are also cited in the draft Welsh Government Culture Priorities currently out for consultation.  Public Health Wales’ ‘Hapus’ population level programme is encouraging us all to take part in activities to support our mental wellbeing, with a wealth of creative wellbeing tools and resources promoted through their national conversation, including the Cultural Cwtsh developed by the Arts Council of Wales. Our joined-up approach in Wales to arts and health was highlighted last year in the Lancet Journal : The arts in public health policy: progress and opportunities where the Arts Council of Wales’s commitment to partnerships with health bodies has been acknowledged for leading to cross-government health policies.   
 
“This is a devastating loss to all the work over many years that has proven the impact of Arts for Health and Wellbeing. We have all worked hard to be where we are, connecting the Arts and Health sectors, to achieve co-production working, a vibrant, committed and massively beneficial programme to fund and support such key work for Arts and Health in Wales. The CVUHB Arts and Wellbeing team have always been pro-active, amazing partners, and pioneers in terms of pushing this work forward.” (Arts partner organisation) 
 
We urge CVUHB to reconsider their decision, to reflect on the groundswell of support for this fantastic service and to consider the long-term implications, and wellbeing of the people of Cardiff and the Vale, and our future generations.    
If we can be of service to the health board in any way, for example to share models of the different ways that other health boards have incorporated their arts and health teams across departments, we urge you to contact us.  
 
Yours sincerely,  
 
Angela Rogers 

Executive Director 
Wales Arts Health & Wellbeing Network