Exploring the challenges and opportunities to improve health outcomes

Creative Lives was commissioned by the Norfolk and Suffolk Culture Board to map the creative health sector across Norfolk and Suffolk, looking at need, investment, gaps, and priority areas, and to develop a series of recommendations that could strengthen creative health provision.

We worked with consultants Nikki Crane (King's College London) and Llewela Selfridge (museums and heritage researcher), and with Olivia Dean (National Centre for Creative Health, East of England Creative Health Associate). We carried out desk-based research, surveys, one-to-one interviews and a series of focus groups, exploring the following questions:

• What is the current creative health activity and how is it being funded, reviewed, and sustained?
• What does good practice look like and how can if be defined, shared, and scaled up?
• What are the workforce training needs?
• How can we make the case for creative health stronger in the region and ensure future investment?

The final report, launched at Snape Maltings on 18 April 2024, highlights the potential of creative health interventions across arts, culture, and heritage to meet health and wellbeing needs in Norfolk and Suffolk in a strategic way.

The report concludes with a number of recommendations to the cultural and health sectors in Norfolk and Suffolk, based on our findings.

You can download the Mapping Creative Health in Norfolk and Suffolk report here.