Art For Wellbeing
Whilst delivering the Community Wellbeing Service, an award winning mental health service funded by NHS Hastings and Rother Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) piloted in GP surgeries across Hastings, East Sussex Tara Reddy saw a need for creating ArtsonPrescription and implementing art based therapys into GP Referral pathways.
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East Sussex has a wealth of artists in the community and Arts on Prescription aim to link the appropriate Creative Service with NHS, Health Care and Community Services to provide creative, reminiscence and confidence building activities to enhance wellbeing and reduce social isolation.
All workshops are facilitated by professional artists alongside qualified wellbeing practitioners with a passion for creative play and an understanding of the benefit it brings to peoples Mental Health and Well being.
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The benefits of these workshops are immense and far reaching to the community building networks and increasing social engagement and confidence of individuals.
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The bespoke activities and projects are designed to accommodate all needs, all ages and backgrounds, and abilities and can be delivered within GP Surgeries, at Home or in Community Settings.
Over recent years, there has been a growing understanding of the impact that the arts can have on health and well being. By supplementing medicine and care, participating in art can improve the health of people who experience mental or physical health problems and even aid prevention of disease by building and enabling social inclusion and increased mental health and well being.
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In 2007, the Department of Health’s Review of Arts and Health Working Group, examined the role the arts can play in health. Its key findings were:
Arts and health are, and should be firmly recognised as being, integral to health, healthcare provision and healthcare environments, including supporting staff
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Arts and health initiatives are delivering real and measurable benefits across a wide range of priority areas for health, and can enable the Department and NHS to contribute to key wider Government initiatives
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There is a wealth of good practice and a substantial evidence base
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The Department of Health has an important leadership role to play in creating an environment in which arts and health can prosper by promoting, developing and supporting arts and health
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The measured improvements include:
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inducing positive physiological and psychological changes in clinical outcomes
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reducing drug consumption
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shortening length of hospital stay
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promoting better doctor-patient relationships
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improving mental healthcare
Whats Improving - Access to Services - Social Prescribing
Partnership case study: ‘Community wellbeing service’ by Southdown
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3/11/ 2015 - Tara Reddy, Community Wellbeing Coordinator Southdown's Social Prescribing service supports patients in primary ... Shirley Cramer, CEO of RSPH, said, “The RSPH has a long history of Social Prescribing"
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A mental health service funded by NHS Hastings and Rother Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) won a prestigious award from the Royal Society for Public Health (RSPH).
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Southdown Housing Association received the award in recognition of its outstanding track record of promoting health and wellbeing through its Social Prescribing mental health service in Hastings, East Sussex.
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Southdown’s Social Prescribing service supports patients with mental health challenges access to non-clinical sources of community support. Located in GP practices at the Station Plaza Health Centre in Hastings, it is offered as an addition or alternative to clinical support.
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70% of patients who use the service said it helped them achieve their goals
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60% reported a reduction in GP appointments related to their mental health
GP at Plaza Cornwallis:
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“For me, when you’re dealing with patients where you might have felt lost and powerless at challenging long-established problems, we now have a service to try and engage with them. A lot of the social prescribing service is about motivating people to make changes."