Wellbeing

Regional Voices, which works to champion the role of voluntary and community organisations to improve health, wellbeing and care across England, has produced a Who’s Who guide to the key people working in health, wellbeing and care in each region.  The guides include relevant people from clinical commissioning groups, health and wellbeing boards, Care Quality Commission, NHS England area teams, commissioning support units and local Healthwatch. 

A summary of comments made during the House of Lords debate “To ask Her Majesty’s Government what is their assessment of the contribution of the arts to the nation’s education, health and emotional well-being.” 25^th July 2013:

The House of Lords will host a short debate on the “contribution of the arts to education, health and emotional wellbeing” tomorrow afternoon, Thursday 25^th July, 2013. The debate, which has been called by Baroness Jones of Whitchurch and Baroness Northover will be posted on Hansard and a link will appear in the next LAHF newsletter. The debate can be followed live via the House of Lords website.

w: http://www.parliamentlive.tv/Main/Live.aspx

The aim of the Measuring National Wellbeing (MNW) programme is to, ‘develop and publish an accepted and trusted set of National Statistics which help people to monitor national wellbeing’. The Office for National Statistics (ONS) has reviewed the measures it applies to wellbeing and, following a period of public consultation has added five new measures including arts and culture. 

The London Creativity and Wellbeing Week 2012 will take place from June 13-20 this summer and promises to be a great showcase for the huge variety of arts and health activity in the capital. There is still time to get involved and include your events or just to start planning what you want to see and do! w: www.creativityandwellbeing.org.uk

The Office for National Statistics has published its initial findings from responses to the consultation on proposed domains and measures of national wellbeing which took place between 31 October 2011 and 23 January 2012.

The Office of National Statistics (ONS) is developing new measures of national wellbeing.

The aim is that these new measures will cover the quality of life of people in the UK, environmental and sustainability issues, as well as the economic performance of the country.

“Developing better measures of wellbeing is a long term programme and ONS are committed to sharing ideas and proposals widely to ensure that the measures are relevant and founded on what matters to people.”

Over the past year, regional organisations from across the country have been working together to establish a new National Alliance for arts, health and wellbeing. As part of this process, a series of events are taking place across England to develop a Charter that will set out the mutual values for those working in arts, health and wellbeing and embody the founding principles for a National Alliance.

From 1 October, Arts Council England (ACE) will assume responsibility for museums and libraries following the abolition of the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council. In advance of this, ACE has published ‘Culture, Knowledge and Understanding’ its policy document for museums and libraries. The document sets out goals and ambitions for the sector including a commitment to “champion the importance of creative experiences to people’s wellbeing”.

The Office for National Statistics (ONS) has published the National Statistician’s report on plans to measure national wellbeing. As part of the programme, ONS set up a national debate to gather views on what matters to people and what influences their wellbeing. The debate attracted over 34,000 responses and highlighted the key areas that matter most to people.