Greater Manchester is set to become the first Creative Health City Region, thanks to a £800,000 grant from Arts Council England’s National Lottery-funded Place Partnership Fund. Led by NHS Greater Manchester and the Greater Manchester Combined Authority, this ambitious three-year project will unite public services, health and social care providers, cultural and voluntary organisations, higher education institutions, and local communities. The goal is to use creativity, culture, and heritage to tackle health inequalities and enhance the wellbeing of residents.

In a significant show of collaboration, the Greater Manchester Civic University Agreement partners –  University of Bolton, Manchester Metropolitan University, The University of Manchester, The University of Salford and The Royal Northern College of Music – will play a pivotal role in the research and learning elements of the initiative under the banner of the Mayor’s Civic University Agreement.

The bid, led by The Univeristy of Manchester’s Creative Manchester and Greater Manchester Creative Health Partnership, aims to deliver a project that will engage diverse community groups, provide training for community practitioners in creative arts for health as well as providing opportunities to evaluate the impact of different creative health models and conduct participatory research.

By championing creative health—an increasingly recognised concept that links engagement with the arts to longer, healthier, and happier lives— Greater Manchester’s Creative Health Place Partnership aims to create lasting ways for creativity and culture to be at the heart of the region’s health and wellbeing.

Greater Manchester’s Creative Health Place Partnership is part of Live Well; GM’s movement for community-led health and wellbeing and will focus on pioneering new ways of supporting residents to live as well as they can, by creating new, community-led approaches with culture and creativity at their heart.

Activity will include training early years providers to use dance to support the development of core strength, numeracy and literacy in nursery schools; supporting neurodivergent young people’s mental health and wellbeing through access to creative activity and creating new, community based mental health support opportunities with and for global majority communities (people who do not consider themselves or are not considered to be white).

The partnership includes GM-based arts organisations with a long history of creative health work, including Venture Arts, Start Salford and ARC in Stockport who are recognised as developing the first ever Arts on Prescription programme in England.

National organisations including Rambert and English National Opera (ENO) are also on board, with Rambert leading the dance and early years strand and ENO working with respiratory experts and communities to expand their award-winning ENO Breathe programme.

Jane Pilkington, Director of Population Health, NHS Greater Manchester said: “Residents of Greater Manchester experience some of the starkest health inequalities in England and we are continually working to find new and innovative ways to support our communities to live well. Support from the Arts Council and a wide range of regional and national partners will enable Greater Manchester to continue to lead the way in harnessing the power of culture and creativity to address these inequalities, be that through creative social prescribing, breath training through singing or mental health support through creative engagement.”

“Greater Manchester is home to many organisations whose mission it is to improve people’s health and wellbeing through access to the arts and heritage and we are proud to be able to build on these foundations to become the world’s first Creative Health City Region.”

Jen Cleary, Director North, Arts Council England said: “We’re proud to support this ambitious work through our Place Partnership Fund, designed to help places make a step-change in the cultural and creative lives of the community. We believe in a strong connection between access to creative experiences and the health and quality of people’s lives, so it’s fantastic to see such a range of creative, health and community partners coming together in this way to address some of the most prominent health issues in Greater Manchester. This project is a really exciting way to address health challenges through the power of arts and culture, and I can’t wait to see how it develops.”

• Learn more about the Greater Manchester Civic University Agreement here.