1st Edition
Creative Health in Systems:
The People, Priorities and Challenges Shaping Integration
Edited By Jane Hearst
2026
'Creative Health in Systems offers an accessible yet engaging guide to how arts, creativity and culture can practically integrate into healthcare systems across England, demonstrating not only what is happening across the system today, but how readers can play an active role in shaping the next phase of Creative Health integration.
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Across fifty-four short chapters, the book brings together health leaders, creative practitioners, policymakers, researchers and lived experience voices to comprehensively map how Creative Health is unfolding. It explores the diverse stakeholders and networks involved in these processes, examining how they work together to improve health outcomes. Readers are guided through the key strategic touchpoints where Creative Health is gaining traction, including public health, population health management, neighbourhood healthcare, mental health, hospital admissions, staff wellbeing and retention, children and young people, and creative ageing. The book also confronts the field’s key challenges, including short-term funding, quality co-production, governance complexity, and persistent inequalities. Chapters share a range of perspectives on planning and evaluating Creative Health provision, before offering a dedicated mapping section with practical tools, enabling readers to visualise their own systems and better understand where creative activity can make meaningful impact within their practice.
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Combining systems insight with grounded examples, Creative Health in Systems provides an authoritative yet highly practical resource that can be dipped into on commutes or between busy moments. This is essential reading for cultural practitioners aiming to work with the health sector, healthcare professionals looking to activate creative assets, and Creative Health academics wanting to anchor their research in practical application.'
Book reviews:
'This book is an invaluable reference, planning tool and introduction to an increasingly complex ecology for those working across Creative Health. Grounded in an understanding of the realities faced by artists/facilitators, cultural organisations, public health teams and health systems, it balances empathy with clarity, application and breadth. By bringing together perspectives from across the sector, it offers a genuinely holistic and collaborative way forward.'
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- Regan McDonald, Public Health Research Officer/ Creative Health Producer, Ikon Gallery and Birmingham City Council.
'In this timely book, Hearst and contributing authors, remind us that creative health development, delivery and evaluation, involves collaborative working rather than silos, and offers helpful strategies and ways for health, arts and those benefiting from creative health interventions, to communicate, co-produce and shape the field together.'
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- Dr Roshni Beeharry, Writing for Wellbeing & Personal Development Facilitator, Founder of Storied Selves and Lecturer, Institute of Neurology, University College London.
'This book powerfully demonstrates that the true value of cross-disciplinary collaboration between arts, culture, heritage, and health lies in creating collaborative environments, where diversity of thought, trust-based relationships, and community engagement drive real change. By bridging sectors, we unlock richer evidence, more joined-up intelligence, and smarter resource allocation, all while fostering a new language of partnership.'
- David Moss, Locality Director, One Weston and Woodspring, NHS Bristol, North Somerset and South Gloucestershire ICB.
1st Edition
A Creative Health Communication Framework: Addressing the Compatibility and Marketability of Mental Health and Wellbeing Services
Written By Jane Hearst
2025
'This groundbreaking volume offers a theoretical, practical, and evidence-based approach to bridging the gap between service-users, -providers, and -commissioners in order to establish Creative Health as a valued part of healthcare, and a key player in the broader healthcare marketplace.
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Offering actionable strategies to strengthen interdisciplinary networks and enrich the Creative Health landscape within modern healthcare systems, the book provides a comprehensive analysis of how economic systems, healthcare philosophy, and societal perceptions shape the uptake and effectiveness of Creative Health services. It outlines the systemic barriers to widespread recognition and identifies how targeted communication can engage both service-users and market forces. Through pragmatic solutions and narrative-based research, chapters present the concept of 'market wellbeing' — a negotiation space that aligns the needs of individuals with healthcare market objectives, fostering stronger connections and sustainability for Creative Health. Ultimately, an entirely novel Creative Health Communication Framework is outlined in the third part of the volume, designed to empower readers with the insights and strategies that can reshape how Creative Health is communicated and valued.
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This will be a key volume for scholars, researchers, and postgraduate students in Creative Health, creative arts and expressive therapies, and mental health and health psychology more broadly. Creative Health practitioners should also find this volume of use'
Book reviews:
'Whether you are a researcher, practitioner or student, this book helps to decode the language, practice and power dynamics of the interdisciplinary landscape of creative health, its systems and services. Written in the UK context, with global relevance, each chapter makes a thoughtful contribution to further informing the creative health sector, specific to mental wellbeing. Furthermore, the ‘Creative Health Communication Framework’ is a valuable tool, prioritising a user-centred voice and approach, whilst giving confidence to individuals and collaborators driving forward the creative health movement. An absolute asset!'
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- Dr Rachel Marsden, Research Fellow in Creative-Public Health (NIHR SPHR Transdisciplinary Fellowship), University of Birmingham and Keele University, and Regional Champion (West Midlands) for the Culture, Health and Wellbeing Alliance (CHWA)
'As CMO of an Integrated Care System (ICS), I value resources that harness the power of Creative Health especially for prevention and early intervention. The framework offered in this book is a vital tool towards that mission, supporting healthcare professionals - both medical and creative - in navigating the complexities of Creative Health commissioning. Elsewhere, chapters help to demystify health and cultural systems, strengthening the synergy needed to advance Creative Health partnerships. It's an excellent resource for anyone committed to enhancing well-being through the arts within our evolving healthcare landscape.'
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- Ananta Dave, Chief Medical Officer, Black Country Integrated Care Board, Presidential Lead for retention and wellbeing, Royal College of Psychiatrists, Trustee, Doctors in Distress
'With Creative Health rapidly becoming a widely recognised health intervention, Hearst’s work unpicks the importance of using a universally understood language and active voice to address both terminology, and marketability, for those working in the Creative Health field. This book adds significant and equitable weight to understanding the vital practical, and strategic value, arts and culture contributes to health and social care, and population health promotion.'
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- Amabel Mortimer, Creative Health facilitator and educator, Arts, Health and Wellbeing Strategic Lead/Programme Director, University of Gloucestershire, Associate Editor International Journal of Art Therapy
'Working within governmental public health, I view this book as an essential guide to Creative Health that can broaden the knowledge base of policymakers and public health leaders with clear, market centred language to support the development of governmental priorities and the tools and language needed to justify funding, integrate arts within healthcare strategies and to promote sustainable and populational wide health benefits of the Creative Health field.'
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- Rhys Boyer, Senior Public Health Officer, Birmingham City Council Public Health
Aspire To
Childrens Book of Representative Rolemodels
Written By Jane Hearst
Illustrated by Sandamini Pallepitiya
2021
This book features fourteen diverse and real life stories about personal identify and career aspirations. Intended for readers aged 8-10, it powerfully traces journeys from childhood uncertainty to adulthood success.
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The book was made in response to research by Aaron Toogood (De Montfort University), which shows that children's aspirations are negatively shaped by their postcodes; with 'out of reach jobs' being identified as young as aged 10. Through the fourteen stories enclosed, Jane and Sandamini demonstrate the counter-narratives - of overcoming boundaries, striving towards a dream, and becoming that which we aspire to.
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The people featured were chosen from De Montfort University's student, staff, alumni and guest speakers, showing that even within a single university there is a deiversity of success stories. They were selected to participate in the project following a review of national datasets evidencing demographics gaps at degree level and lived experience expert informed representation gaps across cultures.