The Arts Belongs at the Heart of the Government’s New Vision for Mental Health
The Government’s response to Professor Peter Fonagy’s recent mental health review marks a critical turning point. By acknowledging that children and young people need early, accessible support long before they reach a clinical threshold - or end up trapped on multi-year waiting lists - ministers have set precisely the right direction. Clinical diagnosis remains a vital gateway for those requiring specialist care, but it can no longer be the only door through which a young person in distress finds help.
As DHSC works to put these reforms into practice ahead of its upcoming Mental Health Strategy for England, a fundamental piece of the puzzle risks being routinely overlooked: the role of civic spaces and cultural institutions.
Arts and civic spaces are not a ‘nice to have’. When we talk about early intervention and creating non-clinical, welcoming spaces where young people feel safe and understood, they are highly effective, but massively under-recognised, public health infrastructure.
The data backs this up. Research from the National Centre for Creative Health shows that arts-on-prescription programmes cut GP consultation rates by 37% and reduce hospital admissions by 27%. Further research from Professor Daisy Fancourt and UCL demonstrates that regular engagement in community cultural activities lowers the risk of developing depression by up to 48%. The arts are an extraordinarily cost-effective intervention, delivering tangible, quantifiable improvements to people's quality of life.
At the Southbank Centre we’ve known this since our foundation 75 years ago. The Royal Festival Hall was built for the 1951 Festival of Britain, designed by the post-war government to be a ‘tonic for the nation’ and to heal communities after the collective trauma of the Second World War.
Back then too the arts were understood not as a luxury. Along with the science, technology and design - all showcased alongside the arts at the Festival of Britain - the arts was recognised as purposeful, providing solutions to daily living and a lens through which to imagine a better future.
And they especially valued their potential for community building, bringing people from all classes and backgrounds together in joyful communion. Seventy-five years on, we’re using the arts to be purposeful again: in tackling a youth mental health crisis where one in five young people aged 8 to 25 lives with a mental health condition.
What makes civic cultural spaces so effective in this territory is that building trusted, long-term relationships is core to what we do. Arts organisations like the Southbank Centre are already adept at listening, going directly into local neighbourhoods and working collaboratively alongside communities to break down the barriers that keep people isolated.
That spirit of listening to our local communities is behind Ombri, a new social prescribing platform built by the Southbank Centre in partnership with social impact technology company Mortar. Co-designed young people and local health professionals, Ombri bridges the gap between healthcare and the arts by connecting 11 to 25-year-olds across South London directly to free, local creative activities - from weekly art clubs, to choirs, youth music groups and spoken word workshops.
Launched today, Ombri provides a practical, preventative pathway. Teachers, GPs and social workers can use it to refer young people into community-based arts support before they reach a CAMHS crisis threshold, or whilst they are waiting for clinical assessment or support. Young people can also self-refer directly, giving them ownership over their own wellbeing model is scalable - so there’s lots of potential.
As Lydia, a young person who has helped Southbank Centre co-design our creative health activities, put it, ‘sometimes, people express themselves more easily through art than by talking therapy.’ During her own struggles with anxiety during GCSEs, creative activity provided the one space where she felt authentic, grounded and clear-minded.
At the Southbank Centre Ombri forms part of our wider commitment to creative health. As well as being an early adopter of social prescribing, and the home to the National Academy for Social Prescribing, we have a created system-change partnership with the South East London Integrated Care Board (ICB) and South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust. Together we’re looking at how to embed creative interventions directly into health services. This includes looking at practical ways to support children currently sitting on CAMHS long waiting lists (young people are waiting an average of 304 days for mental health support!), building their resilience and keeping them connected through arts and cultural activity at a fraction of the cost of formal clinical treatment.
If the Government is serious about shifting from a reactive, diagnostic-led model to a proactive, community-based strategy, it must look beyond traditional clinical settings. In its upcoming Mental Health Strategy for England, it needs to explicitly recognise and write civic arts institutions into the national public health plan as core partners.
With proper strategic backing and recognition, civic arts spaces can take their place alongside health partners to relieve pressure on a stretched NHS and offer young people the early, restorative support they urgently deserve.
Mark Ball is Artistic Director of the Southbank Centre in London, the UK’s largest arts centre and home to the Royal Festival Hall, Queen Elizabeth Hall and Hayward Gallery. Since joining in January 2022, he has led the Southbank Centre’s entire artistic programme across music, visual art, literature, dance and performance, including the launch of the Multitudes festival and the landmark 75th anniversary season in 2026.
Before the Southbank Centre, Mark was Creative Director at Manchester International Festival (now Factory International), where he shaped the artistic programme for the new cultural venue The Factory. He was also Artistic Director and Chief Executive of the London International Festival of Theatre (LIFT), Head of Events and Exhibitions at the Royal Shakespeare Company, and Artistic Director of Fierce Festival in Birmingham. He is known for bold, international and inclusive arts programming.
