Esther Watts has worked in Creative Health for ten years after a career in education and in public affairs. Esther is passionate about Creative Health’s role in supporting people with long-term health conditions and experiencing health inequalities. Her Arts and Dementia work for Alzheimer’s Society was a key plank of Dementia Friendly London and paved the way for the Mayor of London’s Dementia Friendly Arts Venue charter. Her recent work at the National Academy for Social Prescribing has given her a grasp of the health landscape and an understanding of the challenge faced by organisations wanting to get involved in supporting Creative Health.
National Centre for Creative Health (ncch.org.uk)
Contact us: info@ncch.org.uk
Presentation: Inside the NHS: Creative Health
As the Creative Health Associate for the South East, employed by the National Centre for Creative Health and based within the NHS in Sussex, it is Esther and her team job to support the system to highlight the use of creative health for the support of patients and staff, show where gaps are and to make proposals for the future.
In this PowerPoint presentation Esther will outline the programme set up by the National Centre for Creative Health and Arts Council, which has located a Creative Health Associate in each NHS region. She will reprise the meaning of Creative Health in this context and give examples of where it is working well in the region.
Esther and her team will go on to ask: How can we use the learning from the Sussex system to support Kent and Medway? They will also refer to the excellent work supporting Creative Health in Kent and the need for a strategy in each system to support the commissioning and funding of this work in healthcare settings and to support patients when they go home from hospital in the community.
Roundtable: Creativity, Health and Community
This roundtable will look at some of the issues and challenges facing our communities for which creativity and the arts might provide interventions.